Preamble

The House met at half past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

BRITISH RAILWAYS BILL (By Order)

Order for Third Reading read.

To be read the Third time on Tuesday next at Seven o'clock.

MERSEYSIDE METROPOLITAN RAILWAY BILL

Order for consideration, as amended, read.

To be considered on Tuesday next.

LERWICK HARBOUR ORDER CONFIRMATION

Mr. William Ross presented a Bill to confirm a Provisional Order under Section 7 of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936, relating to Lerwick Harbour. And the same was read the First time;

To be considered upon Wednesday next and to be printed. [Bill 89.]

Oral Answers to Questions — HOME DEPARTMENT

Mr. George Pottinger

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will inquire into the circumstances in which Mr. George Pottinger, serving a sentence of five years' imprisonment for corruptly receiving gifts whilst in the Civil Service, is receiving favoured treatment, details of which have been sent to him, in the course of the prisoner's appeal.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Roy Jenkins): The prisoner did not receive favoured treatment during the hearing of his appeal, and the details in the newspaper report to which my hon. Friend has drawn my attention are either incorrect or misleading.

Mr. Hamilton: I am glad of that assurance, but will my right hon. Friend say whether other prisoners in similar circumstances would be allowed to transfer from the prison to the Appeal Court by private car, or would normally be put in Brixton Prison overnight, as was suggested in the newspaper report? Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that Mr. Pottinger has not been and will not be treated more favourably than any other prisoner purely by virtue of his social status?

Mr. Jenkins: I do not think that he should be treated either more favourably or less favourably by virtue of that. I give the assurances which my hon. Friend wants. The vehicles used for the journeys to and from the Appeal Court were vehicles which were under contract to the Prison Department and are habitually so used for the transport of prisoners. To take another example, it is perfectly true that Pottinger occupies a single room at Ford Prison, but so do more than 100 other prisoners. One hundred out of 106 prisoners over 50 are in this block. There is no evidence of special privileges having been given. If such evidence were brought to my notice, I should look into it.

Mr. Anthony Stodart: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of newspaper reports that Mr. Pottinger may be transferred to a prison in Scotland? If so, does the right hon. Gentleman say that there would be nothing unusual about that, and that no special privilege would be involved?

Mr. Jenkins: I am not aware of such reports, and the matter has not been under my consideration, but prisoners are frequently transferred between England and Scotland.

Charities (Accounts)

Mr. Beith: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will introduce legislation designed to assist the Charity Commissioners more effectively to scrutinise the accounts of registered charities.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Dr. Shirley Summer-skill): No, Sir. My right hon. Friend believes that adequate powers are already available under the Charities Act 1960.

Mr. Beith: Is the hon. Lady aware that there is concern either that the powers may be inadequate or that the commissioners may be unable effectively to use these powers in respect of many small charities whose funds are in investments with low rates of return, some of which have not submitted annual accounts or have not been required to do so? Would not legislation help on these and wider questions of qualifications for charity status?

Dr. Summerskill: The Charity Commission is an independent body and its decisions are subject to review by the courts and not by Ministers, but my right hon. Friend will be willing to discuss with the Charity Commissioners, who have day-to-day responsibilities in this area, any suggestions relating to the administration of the present law on charities.

Mr. Arthur Davidson: Does not my hon. Friend agree that the time has come for new legislation to enable the Charity Commissioners to know much more clearly which organisations merit charitable status? Should there not be much firmer guidelines, so that the commissioners know what is or is not a pressure

group, and what is or is not a political organisation? At present, many organisations which do excellent work are not given the benefit of charitable status.

Dr. Summerskill: I note what my hon. Friend says, and I repeat that my right hon. Friend will be willing to discuss any change in the law with the Charity Commissioners.

Police (Complaints)

Mr. Whitehead: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will now announce his proposals for an independent review element in the investigation of complaints against the police; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: I shall be announcing my proposals shortly, before the Summer Recess.

Mr. Whitehead: That is a welcome announcement after the year that was wasted by the working party. I pay tribute to the extent to which some of the interested parties, such as the Police Federation, have moved. Does my right hon. Friend agree that there should be two equal criteria—the extent to which the police are prepared to operate any system that is introduced and the extent to which the public have confidence that a genuine independent review element is involved?

Mr. Jenkins: Yes, indeed; I attach great importance to those principles—both to the fact that the system should be accepted and well operated by the police and that it should command confidence among the public. It is precisely in the endeavour to find the right balance be-between those two principles that I have taken a little time to give further consideration to the matter.

Mr. Marten: Although I agree that the investigation of complaints against the police is of extreme importance, will the Home Secretary look at the other side of the coin—the protection of the police and the public—which is of even greater importance? Is it not time for the House to consider whether, for the murder of policemen and for bombing, the death penalty should be restored?

Mr. Jenkins: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his ingenuity in getting into


a supplementary question a publicity-attracting one which has no relationship to the Question on the Order Paper.

Mr. Norman Fowler: Will the right hon. Gentleman refute the suggestion that the working party wasted a year? Will he also give an assurance that when he announces his proposals he will choose from the alternatives which he has put forward?

Mr. Jenkins: No, Sir, I do not agree that the working party wasted its time; I think that it may have operated on too narrow a basis. There are two important principles beyond those enunciated by my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) to which I propose to stick. One is that the police should retain responsibility for investigating complaints against themselves; and the second is that there should be no question of double jeopardy. I repeat that the working party did not waste its time, but perhaps went too narrowly in respect of its terms of reference. I hope to be able to build on its work.

Mr. Crawshaw: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, although we are anxious not to lower the morale of the police force, we must realise that members of the public are distressed by some of these investigations? The public agree that what happens in the police force in most cases requires little investigation, but they are concerned that in some respects there is white-washing—and this view is also taken by members of local authorities and watch committees. I hope he will bear in mind that as the mechanics of the system are gone through it is important to see that justice is done.

Mr. Jenkins: It is important to preserve the correct balance. Clearly, there can be abuses in the police force, as they occur in any other body. It is important that where they occur they should be investigated, and people should see that they have been properly investigated. That is why the case for the independent element is strong, and it is equally important that we do nothing to undermine the general morale of the police who are carrying out their duties properly, as overwhelmingly the majority of them are doing. It is also important that we should in no way give the impression that we do not value their services.

Weapons and Firearms (Illegal Imports)

Mr. Farr: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will seek powers designed to reduce the amount of illegal importation of offensive weapons and firearms from abroad.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: No, Sir. Additional powers are not needed, though I recognise that enforcement may present difficulties.

Mr. Farr: In view of the fact that the police have confiscated over 500,000 illegal weapons, such as pistols, in this country since the war, most of which were improperly imported, is there not now a good case for a tighter control on passengers' luggage coming into the country, including random checks and possibly some form of electronic surveillance?

Mr. Jenkins: I am willing to consider any matters put to me. This is to a large extent a matter for the Customs and Excise, who are responsible not to me but to the Chancellor of the Exchequer—although, in a sense, I am responsible for the consequences and, naturally, I pay great attention to this matter. The Customs and Excise are well aware of the dangers involved and, given the total number of people involved, have considerable success in managing to exercise controls along the lines suggested by the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Christopher Price: Is my right hon. Friend aware that since yesterday's outrage at the Tower of London there will be far greater pressure to take much more seriously offences involving the bringing of weapons into the country? Is he further aware that one of my constituents was killed yesterday and several of the family were injured in the explosion at the Tower? I have been visiting those constituents and people in my constituency this morning. There is a great sense of outrage and a feeling that the Government must put all their resources into making sure that this does not happen again.

Mr. Jenkins: I am aware that the lady who died in yesterday's outrage was a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price). I note what he said, which is a reiteration of comments from all parts of the House


when I made my statement yesterday evening. The Government's position—which, if anything, is intensified by yesterday's incident—is that we have a determination to use any powers which, on a sensible consideration of the situation, we feel will help us to restrict the dangers to which we are subjected. We would be willing to introduce measures of control which would be conducive to that end. I reiterate that point of view, as did the Conservative Government before me. Unless we can be clear how any such measures would help, it is not necessarily sensible merely to propound in general the desirability of tighter security.

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: Will the Home Secretary accept that, although he is willing to introduce powers which he is convinced will reduce the dangers to our citizens, the vast majority of people are convinced that it is more than ever imperative that we should reintroduce capital punishment for these crimes which cause death and mutilation among so many of our citizens? Will he put the matter to the test by bringing in a Bill?

Mr. Jenkins: No, I shall not bring in a Bill which I do not believe to be correct—any more than I believe the hon. Lady would do if she were occupying my office—or, indeed, any more than the Conservatives did when they were in Government. I am not convinced on this matter. I am aware that in present circumstances it is easy for people to feel strongly on these matters—I sympathise with their strong feelings—but it is important that decisions should not be taken in the heat of the moment. I find it difficult to see the argument that terrorism would be uniquely responsive to a capital deterrent. I think that of all capital crimes it is probably the one which would be the least uniquely responsive. If hon. Members think about this matter, they may come to the conclusion that there is considerable force in this point.

Mr. Molloy: Will my right hon. Friend acknowledge that there is bitterness and anguish in the hearts of ordinary people about what is going on? I agree that any frenetic approach would be wrong, but because it is repugnant that people should seek to smuggle arms and offensive weapons into the country, the situation should be subject to the most severe

scrutiny and anybody caught should be subjected to the most excessive punishment along civilised lines, since the idea behind these moves is to harm innocent people.

Mr. Jenkins: I take note of what my hon. Friend said. The Question is poised between discussing firearms and discussing explosives, which is a rather different matter. If people are caught bringing firearms into the country, of course steps will be taken. It is an offence to bring rifles, pistols or revolvers into the country without proper authority, but the law has to be applied and on certain occasions people may bring weapons into the country provided that they declare them. For example, they can bring in rifles or shooting guns for legitimate purposes. The law has to be properly applied, but it will be applied as stringently as possible.

Sir K. Joseph: Will the Home Secretary accept that I have no quarrel with his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Mrs. Kellett-Bowman), but that I doubt whether many of his Labour colleagues sitting behind him are right to dismiss so cavalierly what my hon. Friend said? Does he accept that he and I—who have up to the present, and, so far as I am concerned, still, shared the same point of view about capital punishment—have failed so far to persuade the majority that we are right. We still have a job to do to persuade the public, a large number of whom agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster, namely, that, particularly in the case of dedicated terrorists, what is happening at present may not be the appropriate treatment. Will he accept that some of his hon. Friends should not dismiss so derisively the widespread views of the public?

Mr. Jenkins: I am grateful for what the right hon. Gentleman began by saying, but I thought that he was trying to have it both ways towards the end of what he said. I think that one is bound to state clearly to the public what one believes to be the case. I regard the horror of yesterday's event as such that, if I believed that the restoration of capital punishment would prevent a repetition, I should be bound to overcome my deep-seated repugnance for such a penalty. But I am not so convinced. I do not


begin to be so convinced. As I said in reply to the hon. Member for Lancaster (Mrs. Kellett-Bowman), I think that there has never been effective evidence that it is a unique deterrent. Least of all do I believe that it would be a unique deterrent against the lunatic fanatics with whom we are dealing in these circumstances. I cannot be unaware—I am sure that the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) or anyone who may occupy my position in the future could not be unaware—of the difficulties under our judicial process which would have to apply, in which we would have terrorists imprisoned for several weeks and possibly months, under sentence of death, and the consequences which could follow from that.

Postal Voting

Mr. Rifkind: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recent representations he has had asking him to introduce proposals to improve the law in relation to postal voting.

Dr. Summerskill: We have received representations about extending the entitlement to further categories of electors; applying the facility to local government elections; and possible improvements in the arrangements for the dissemination, delivery and recording of application forms and ballot papers.

Mr. Rifkind: Will the hon. Lady acknowledge that there is increasing frustration amongst many thousands of British people who are able to have only one holiday a year—often at a time not of their choosing—and who are denied their democratic rights? Will she urgently reconsider the present unjust and illogical rules, which prevent such people indulging in postal voting at an election which is not called at the time of their choosing and over which they have little control?

Dr. Summerskill: The problems of those unable to vote because they are away on holiday must be weighed against the increased risk of abuse inherent in any extension of postal voting. It would be very difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between bona fide holiday makers and those who claimed to be such. It would be a very hard administrative problem to check on it.

Residence Permits (Appeals)

Mr. Robin F. Cook: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what he is doing to speed up the machinery for hearing appeals against refusal to extend or vary a permit to stay in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: Steps have been taken to increase the staff dealing with immigration appeals, and to introduce certain procedural simplifications in the Home Office. In addition, more adjudicators have been appointed on a part time basis. I am considering whether further improvements are possible in the longer term.

Mr. Cook: Will my right hon. Friend accept that that answer will be very welcome to the many citizens who, for anything up to a year, have been living under the threat of deportation? Has he seen my correspondence with his hon. Friend the Minister of State concerning a constituent of mine who is a West Bank Palestinian and who, unless he visits his country this summer, will lose his residential qualification, but cannot leave this country until his appeal has been heard? Will my right hon. Friend consider instituting an emergency procedure for advancing appeals in such cases? Is there any real purpose in refusing a year's extension permit if it takes 10 months to crank it through the appeals machinery?

Mr. Jenkins: The delay arises because the appeals machinery is being used increasingly. Additional staff are being appointed in both the Midlands and the North. One has recently been appointed in Scotland. I am aware of the particular difficulties to which my hon. Friend refers. Whether it would be possible to treat someone in this position out of turn raises certain difficulties, but I am prepared to look into the matter.

Illegal Immigrants

Mr. Brittan: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what action he proposes to take or has taken in respect of illegal immigrants who have applied for indefinite leave to remain in this country as a result of his statement in the House of 11th April 1974 and have been found ineligible under the terms of the statement.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: As I said in reply to a Question by the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) on 20th June, where a person applies under the terms of the announcement which I made on 11th April and is found to be ineligible to benefit, his case is considered in the light of all the relevant circumstances. It is not possible to generalise about the way in which such applications are dealt with, but each case is very carefully considered on its individual merits.

Mr. Brittan: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that it appears from that statement that some at least of those who apply and are found ineligible are deported? Does he not feel that in respect of those people the amnesty has proved to be not an act of mercy but a trap?

Mr. Jenkins: This is a new approach to it. Certain difficulties arise here but the law has to be applied, though we endeavour to do so with humanity where there is a genuine misunderstanding. What is manifestly the case is that the figures which were put forward—mainly from the Opposition benches and from outside the House—about the numbers involved have proved to be grossly exaggerated. In fact, 61 have been given permission to stay and 82 have been found to be ineligible.

Mr. Whitehead: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there are serious anomalies, such as the case of my constituent, Mr. Harjail Singh Bains, about whom I am in correspondence with the Minister of State? People who have been in this country for six, seven and eight years and who thought that they were eligible for the amnesty find that they are not. Is there not a strong case for a compassionate response and for my right hon. Friend to vary deportation orders?

Mr. Jenkins: That is why I say that each case is considered carefully on its merits. That is not a form of words; it is the reality of the position. We consider cases in that way. The amnesty was intended to apply to those who had been caught by the retrospective aspects of the 1971 Act, and it does not apply more widely, for example, to seamen deserters and overstayers. But where these came to light and there is genuine

misunderstanding, we try to apply a mixture of sense and humanity.

Mr. Lane: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what further action this Government have taken on the lines that the previous administration were developing to counter current and future illegal immigration, not only by means in this country but by co-operation with the authorities overseas?

Mr. Jenkins: We have followed up what the hon. Gentleman himself did during his visits there. As I indicated on 11th April and as I have repeated since, stringent measures continue to be taken, with considerable effect. It is also of great importance, if we are to counter this effectively, to have the highest degree of co-operation not only with Governments overseas but with the recently arrived immigrant community here. I think that the measures that I have taken will help to secure such co-operation.

International Guerrilla Festival

Mrs. Knight: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department to how many persons he has refused entry to Britain in connection with the meeting of the Terrorist International in Belfast.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: None so far, but as I said in reply to a Question by the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Biggs-Davison) on 27th June—[Vol. 875, c. 533–4.]—I shall not hesitate to use my powers under the Immigration Act 1971 to prevent the entry into the United Kingdom of anyone subject to control who there is reason to believe may engage in acts of violence or encourage or incite such acts.

Mrs. Knight: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that that answer is not altogether satisfactory and that it is highly offensive to the British people that known international terrorists should meet on British soil to plot and plan against free and democratic people? Will not the right hon. Gentleman recognise the seriousness with which people view this matter?

Mr. Jenkins: Of course I recognise the seriousness with which people view this matter. But some people, like the hon. Lady, who claim to be great upholders of the law, seem to have no regard as to


whether I should proceed by means of the process of law or not. They seem to have no regard to the fact that what I can do and shall do is to apply the law, and apply it fairly. I cannot invent laws. The case of the Official Sinn Fein which may be organising a gathering, partly in Dublin and partly in Northern Ireland, is not a matter for me.
We shall deal very strictly with cases of people who apply for visas and with people who try to come here on their way to the gathering, but I cannot conduct a questionnaire throughout the world asking who is and who is not likely to come, if those people do not apply for visas and do not present themselves at British ports of entry.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: If the Home Secretary will be a little less frivolous, may I ask, with regard to the matter of visas, whether he is in touch with the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary and whether the police in this country are in touch with the Garda in the Irish Republic? There is to be, as he has said, a curtain raiser in Dublin to the gala in Belfast? If so, co-operation between our two countries, who face the same perils, is important.

Mr. Jenkins: Yes, indeed; I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I can assure him, without going into the details, that we have taken considerable preparatory steps to deal with any difficulty that may arise in this way.
With regard to visas, the position varies according to the countries, but visas would have to be applied for in advance by nationals of all East European countries and of Cuba and most Arab countries. There has been no advance notice and no request from overseas from any national of the group of countries I have indicated. But we are in co-operation with the appropriate bodies.

Mrs. Knight: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall seek to raise this matter on the Adjournment as early as possible.

Drowning Accidents

Mr. Sainsbury: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he anticipates receiving the report of the working party which he is setting up to examine the means adopted by local

authorities and others to prevent drowning accidents and to effect rescues in inland and inshore waters, and to make recommendations.

Dr. Summerskill: The working party is expected to hold its first meeting on 23rd July. It is too soon to say when its final report will be made, but action on important findings need not await the preparation of the final report.

Mr. Sainsbury: Is the hon. Lady aware of the concern which her reply will cause in view of the number of accidents which have occurred arising from the use of power boats close to shore lines? Will she consider whether there could be an interim report in order to take urgent action on this matter before the high risk season, which will be upon us by the time the working party has first met?

Dr. Summerskill: I am sure that the working party will wish to view the adequacy of the present arrangements for controlling power boats. No doubt the hon. Gentleman will be able to supply any evidence or information he wishes to put to the working party.

Emergencies (Local Authority Assistance)

Sir David Renton: asked the Secretary of State to the Home Department what financial help will be given in the current financial year to local authorities in England and Wales to enable them to discharge their responsibilities under the Civil Defence Act 1948 and the Local Government Act 1972 for dealing with emergencies in war and peace.

Dr. Summerskill: Under the Civil Defence Act 1948, the estimated expenditure in 1974–75 on grants to local authorities is £1,630,000. Expenditure under Section 138 of the Local Government Act 1972 does not qualify for Home Office grant.

Sir D. Renton: Is the hon. Lady aware that the sum of £1,630,000 is totally inadequate to enable local authorities to perform their statutory duties in these matters, particularly as some of them are already in great financial difficulties and are making great demands upon their ratepayers? Will the hon. Lady ask her colleagues in the Government—especially


in the Treasury—to reconsider this allocation, as it at present means that local authorities will not be able to carry out their statutory duties?

Dr. Summerskill: In 1974–75 local authorities are likely to spend about £2 million in all—which is an increase of 11 per cent. over the 1973–74 amount—and £1·5 million of the £2 million will be reimbursed by specific grant.

Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: Is the hon. Lady aware that we are talking about the last-ditch defences of this country, which are inadequate enough as it is? Will she reconsider this, because unless the amount is increased local authorities will not be able to provide training facilities to make use of the large number of public-spirited people who wish to make a contribution to public welfare in this way?

Dr. Summerskill: Extremely good progress is being made in the establishment of county emergency planning teams all over the country since local government reorganisation, but I shall bear in mind what the hon. and gallant Gentleman has said.

Mr. William Hamilton: Does my hon. Friend recognise that many hon. Members on the Government side of the House regard increased expenditure on civil defence as a colossal waste of money? Does my hon. Friend not agree that in view of the cuts of £111 million announced by the previous Government last December, relating to health and social services, any money to spare should go to these services, and in particular to the nurses?

Dr. Summerskill: I appreciate that there are different views on this matter. My right hon. Friend has undertaken to consider the need for a statement on Civil Defence in the context of the promised defence White Paper.

Urban Aid

Mr. David Steel: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement outlining his programme to deal with the urban situation.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: Yes, Sir. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and I intend to consult local

authority and other interests on a new strategy for tackling the problems of those living in the most acutely deprived urban areas. I am circulating an outline of the approach in the OFFICIAL REPORT. It involves the preparation and subsequent implementation by selected local authorities, in collaboration with all those concerned, of comprehensive community programmes containing an analysis of the needs of the area considered as a whole and proposals for meeting them. These programmes are to be developed through a series of trial runs, and financial arrangements will be discussed with the local authorities.

Mr. Steel: The Home Secretary's announcement will be warmly welcomed, particularly in view of the fact that the Chairman of the Community Relations Commission—Mr. Mark Bonham Carter—has recently said that a co-ordinated programme is urgently needed to deal with the mass of growing problems in the inner cities. Are the Government to apply to the European Social Fund for some financial help which may be available in this excellent enterprise?

Mr. Jenkins: I do not understand that that is involved in the financial preparations for this exercise, but we should be only too glad to receive appropriate funds to help in dealing with the major problem of acute deprivation in certain cities. What is envisaged is an important move forward in the co-ordination of strategy. I hope that in the near future it will be possible to get two projects going in Scotland and three or four in England and Wales.

Mr. Ashley: I welcome my right hon. Friend's answer, but will he give an assurance that he will liaise closely with my hon. Friend the Minister of State dealing with urban affairs in implementing the scheme, bearing in mind the outstanding work which has already been done by the Minister of State?

Mr. Jenkins: Yes, indeed. The responsibility for co-ordinating strategy on these matters of deprivation and urban poverty rests on the Home Secretary, but I certainly join in my hon. Friend's tribute to the work which my hon. Friend the Minister of State has done. We shall certainly keep in touch with him and with the other Departments concerned. This


is intended essentially to be a co-ordinated strategy, bringing Whitehall Departments more closely together than hitherto.

Mr. Lane: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Government's intention to carry on with what we were preparing in this field will be very welcome? Will he consider, as one of the next steps, the possibility of developing an action programme of special help for, say, three urban areas of the most deprived sort, of which one could be in London, one in Birmingham and one in Liverpool? Will he keep this in mind as a possibility?

Mr. Jenkins: I shall keep it in mind as a possibility. I do not wish to be committed to exact areas at the moment, but I shall consult closely with local authorities.

Following is the information:

Following an interdepartmental study led by the Urban Deprivation Unit of the Home Office, the Government propose to initiate trials, in selected local authority areas, of a new strategy for assessing and meeting the needs of those who live in the most deprived urban areas. Local authority and other interests will be consulted. The aim is to tackle more effectively the problems of those who, in addition to suffering individual or household deprivations, such as low income, unemployment, mental or physical hardship, and so on, are subject to the poorest physical and environmental conditions and the least satisfactory levels and quality of services.

A selected number of local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales whose jurisdictions include areas of the most acute urban deprivation would be invited to prepare "Comprehensive Community Programmes" (CCPs). The areas affected would each be of about 10,000 population, and would be identified from an analysis of indices of deprivation and from discussion with local authorities. The CCP would identify the whole range of economic, social, and physical or environmental problems of the area and propose action to deal with them focussing on what could be achieved within five years. The CCP would be submitted to the central Government for approval and financial assistance, the detailed arrangements for which would be discussed with the local authorities.

Preparing, implementing and monitoring the effectiveness of CCPs will involve an active partnership between central Government, regional health and water authorities, local authorities, voluntary bodies and residents.

The essential feature of the approach is that the needs of those living in the areas in question would be considered as a whole and not solely by reference to the specific responsibilities of the various agencies concerned with providing the services necessary for meet

ing these needs, for example, training, legal advice, education, housing, health and welfare services, and so forth.

This approach is concerned with the administrative processes for dealing with a situation that the Government regard as requiring a new strategy; it is intended to make use of and build on current projects arising from the development of other important elements in the Government's policies for dealing with poverty and urban problems such as the studies of the "cycle of deprivation", the inner area studies and the community development projects.

In order to associate all those concerned with the development of this new strategy, it is proposed, with the co-operation of the local authorities and other interests to undertake a series of trial runs of the CCP approach in four or five areas in England and Wales and two in Scotland.

Offenders (Community Service Orders)

Mr. Hardy: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will state the number of offenders who, in the last two years, have been sentenced to carry out work of value to the community as an alternative or an addition to other punishments; if he will state the areas in which such penalties have been awarded; and whether he will encourage proposed extensions to the arrangements for such sentences.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: The relevant statutory provisions came into force on 1st January 1973. Up to 30th June 1974, 1,190 offenders had been made subject to community service orders in the six experimental schemes in Durham, inner London, Kent, Nottinghamshire, Shropshire and South-West Lancashire. I am anxious that this form of treatment should be extended to other areas as and when they are able to make the necessary arrangements, and my Department has recently opened discussions with interested organisations with this aim in view.

Mr. Hardy: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. I am sure that there will be a general interest in that answer, if it can ever be read. Will he urge that officials of the courts in other areas of the country shall engage in early consultation with local authorities so that effort-demanding projects can be identified and work can proceed?

Mr. Jenkins: I shall indeed. I am most anxious—as I took the opportunity to say in a speech that I made about six weeks


ago—to stress the importance that I attach to developments along these lines. I should like to see an extension of the scheme in the way that my hon. Friend suggests.

Mr. Michael Marshall: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that we welcome what he has said? Will he further consider whether it would be in the interests of this scheme in particular to give emphasis to long-term prisoners in this kind of remedial treatment? Does he further accept that there is a strong case for seeing whether life imprisonment should not be life imprisonment, as an alternative to capital punishment?

Mr. Jenkins: I shall certainly study, without commitment, the extent to which long-term prisoners can be used in this way. I understood the motive of the hon. Gentleman's last question to be that life sentences should always last for life. I do not think that I would accept that view, although, as any Home Secretary would, I would naturally proceed very cautiously in letting out people where I thought that there was danger to the public. But to say in advance that life sentences should always last for life would impose a difficult burden on the prison service, apart from everything else. Hope, I think, is an essential ingredient in human life.

Political Criminals

Mr. Adley: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement about his policy on the detention of criminals claiming political motivation.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: There is no special policy: they are, in principle, treated in the same way as are all other convicted offenders.

Mr. Adley: That answer seems slightly at variance with what the right hon. Gentleman said yesterday about hunger strikers—a decision which many of us will applaud. Does he not agree that if certain people insist on calling themselves political criminals and regard themselves as enemies of the State, we ought to consider imposing on them the same penalties as are still imposed on people convicted of treason, or, alternatively, that the penalties for treason should be reviewed? Will he give his attention to that point?

Mr. Jenkins: I see no contradiction between what I have just said and what I said yesterday, when I thought my proposals for doing away with forcible feeding in prisons—in, I hope, the majority of cases—were sensible and right on their merits. They do not necessarily apply specifically to political prisoners, although they do in certain cases. We do not recognise the status of "political prisoner" in this country, and there is certainly no ground on which one can suddenly announce that someone who so announces himself has ipso facto become convicted of treason. If the hon. Gentleman pauses for a moment to consider the matter I think that he will agree that there can be no basis in law for such a suggestion.

Mr. Ashton: Will my right hon. Friend continue to resist these demands for capital punishment for political crimes? Is he aware that there is a desire on the part of members of the IRA to appear as martyrs and that nothing would please them more than to parade outside Pentonville at 9 o'clock in the morning with dark glasses and black berets, in a form of political uniform? Does he not agree that to accede to the hon. Member's request would make the situation far worse than it is?

Mr. Jenkins: There is a certain amount in what my hon. Friend says. We want neithers martyrs nor offensive political parades. But in all these difficult matters—I understand how strongly people feel outside and in this House—there is room for rational thought as well as for instant suggestion.

Police (Recruiting)

Mr. Norman Fowler: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will make a statement on the progress of police recruiting so far during 1974.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: Recruitment to police forces in England and Wales during the first five months of 1974 was 2,755.

Mr. Fowler: Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that the first priority must be to improve the strength of forces in some of our major cities, including London? What action does he propose to take to reduce the disturbing number of experienced policemen who are now


resigning from the service before reaching retirement age?

Mr. Jenkins: The hon. Gentleman is correct in saying that the major problem is in London and one or two other forces. As for the strength of the force in the country as a whole, it is nearly 25 per cent. higher than was the case eight or 10 years ago, and that is a substantial improvement. But there are difficulties in London. The position in the police force as a whole is that recruitment was at about the same level at the beginning of this year as it was last year, and that wastage is a shade, but only a shade, lower, so that the increasing wastage trend which had existed for a little time seems to have flattened out. I do not deny that there is a real problem here, and by means of the London allowance and other methods we keep it closely under review.

Oral Answers to Questions — MALTA

Mr. Guy Barnett: asked the Prime Minister whether he will seek to pay an official visit to Malta, GC.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): I have at present no plans to do so, Sir.

Mr. Barnett: Has there yet been any agreement with the Maltese Government about servicing our outstanding debts?

The Prime Minister: When I met the Prime Minister of Malta on 28th June, he informed me—I think that this was announced in the Maltese Parliament the following week—that the Government of Malta have resumed the servicing of the outstanding British Exchequer loans.

Mr. Farr: Has the right hon. Gentleman any immediate plans to visit another neighbouring Commonwealth island, namely, Cyprus? Has he anything in mind in the way of an initiative to have removed from the island the immigrant Greek military leaders and to achieve the early restoration of President Makarios?

The Prime Minister: I have no plans to visit Cyprus, but I share with the whole House deep anxiety about the events of Monday morning, even though I have met President Makarios and, last night for several hours, the Turkish Prime Minister. We have made strong representations to

the Greek Government about what has occurred and what we think should now occur. I understand that there is likely to be a meeting of the Security Council tomorrow to discuss these matters. We shall of course play our full part in that. We also have a rôle as guarantors of the 1960 treaty.

Mr. Heath: Is the Prime Minister aware that the House is glad to know that the Maltese Government have resumed the servicing of the British debt, which is in the interests of relations between our countries? Will he assure us that so long as our partners in NATO continue to make their contribution towards the cost Her Majesty's Government will keep the defence forces in Malta at their present strength?

The Prime Minister: That question is one of those being considered under the defence review, on which a statement will be made to the House when it is completed.

Oral Answers to Questions — CONWAY

Mr. Wyn Roberts: asked the Prime Minister if he will pay an official visit to the Conway constituency.

The Prime Minister: I visited the Conway constituency last Friday, Sir.

Mr. Roberts: In his speech at Bangor—which I gather was heard by an extraordinarily large number of policemen—the Prime Minister attacked my right hon. Friend for failing to support his renegotiations with the EEC. Is the Prime Minister not aware that the majority of Opposition Members have always been in favour of continuing negotiation within the EEC? Second, does the Prime Minister think that he will obtain new terms unless he agrees in advance to recommend them to the British people? If he is not prepared to recommend them, what is the purpose of the EEC countries negotiating with him? Does this not clearly show that the Government's position on the renegotiation issue is totally false?

The Prime Minister: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be glad to hear that my speech was listened to by a large number of his constituents, who will form a small part of the Labour


majority after the next election. Concerning the points raised by the hon. Gentleman, I am glad to hear that the Conservative Party—if he speaks with authority for it; he used to have some authority when he sat on the back benches on this side of the House—now supports the idea of renegotiation, which we have pressed. All that I asked at Bangor was that the Leader of the Opposition might consider answering the questions that we have put to him about the right of the British people to a vote. I wanted to ask the right hon. Gentleman—[Interruption.]—the hon. Gentleman was quoting my speech—whether he supports the terms that we have put forward for renegotiation, and particularly the achievements of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture in clearing up the beef shambles which the previous Government left behind.

Mr. Kinnock: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in Bangor, as in the remainder of Wales, there are an extraordinary number of Socialist policemen? Does he share my curiosity about the fact that a shadow spokesman on Welsh affairs continues to be—and at any costs—a Euro-fanatic, when the overwhelming majority of the Welsh people continue to be resolutely against membership of the EEC and welcome the opportunity which my right hon. Friend and his Government will give them to express their verdict on that question?

The Prime Minister: In view of the Opposition's interest in police matters, may I say that the security arrangements were exactly those which were adoptedrightly—in the time of my predecessor? I am not aware of what the shadow spokesman on Welsh affairs may have said. I do not even know who he is; nor do the people of Wales; but I know that when the Conservatives had to man up a Welsh Office they had to do it mainly by the use of absentee landlords across the border.

Mr. Thorpe: Is the Prime Minister aware that I am not the shadow spokesman for Wales, either for my party or the Opposition? [Interruption.] Not yet. If the view is taken that I should be, I am highly flattered. I have two questions for the right hon. Gentleman. Now that he has reversed his view on the desirability of holding a referendum—which I am sure

he will agree was contrary to the view expressed at the 1970 General Election may we take it that it is now his view that this is a good method of testing people's views in constitutional issues such as the Common Market, Kilbrandon and electoral reform? As the Prime Minister is always logical in his conclusions, does he agree that if the British people are to have a free vote, so should the House of Commons and, in particular, the Parliamentary Labour Party?

The Prime Minister: I note the right hon. Gentleman's statement that he is not shadow spokesman for Wales. At the risk of upsetting his feelings, may I say that he is not a shadow spokesman for England, either? However, with regard to the question of the referendum, which I have dealt with many times, I would not have introduced into the House of Commons a measure which was unacceptable to the British people, as that measure clearly was—[Interruption.]—nor did I use the phrase "full-hearted consent" which was used by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition. The terms of entry into Europe have never been accepted by the British people at any time. On the right hon. Gentleman's question about referenda on other subjects, I think that the House—and even the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Liberal Party, on mature consideration—will realise that the constitutional issues raised in the matter of entry into Europe, which never had the full-hearted consent of the British people, are constitutional issues far transcending any other constitutional matters.

Mr. Rippon: Will the Prime Minister accept that we all welcome the way in which the Government as a whole are negotiating in good faith to keep Britain in the Community? Second, on the constitutional issue, will he confirm that any proposals that the Government may bring forward—we accept that this is a matter, as the Foreign Secretary says, on which we must wait for a referendum—would require legislation, which would have to be debated in the House?

The Prime Minister: I think that it is possible—I am not certain—that legislation would be required. But I Shall certainly consider this matter. [Interruption.] I believe that it would require legislation. We are concentrating at this


stage on the renegotiations, and, of course, legislation will be introduced by the Government should that be required—as it probably will. I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for his opening words about his approval of the way in which we are conducting the renegotiations. It means a great deal to us that he should have said that, because the difficulty of the renegotiations is enormously increased by the feebleness with which he accepted totally unacceptable terms himself.

Mr. Heath: Is the Prime Minister now telling the House and the country that he maintained until 1971 an agreement with myself, either as Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition, that to have a referendum in this country was entirely against our constitutional procedures, but that he then changed his mind in July 1971 without having bothered to inquire whether legislation would be required in this House, and since then he has been saying to the country that he will have a referendum and he does not even know whether it requires legislation? Is he suggesting for one moment that he alone will frame the question which will be put to the people of this country, should be ever have the chance of putting it? Surely such an attitude is absolutely astonishingly irresponsible.

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman is wrong. We never had an agreement. We never discussed the matter. [Interruption.] We never discussed the matter together, as the right hon. Gentleman will know. Concerning the statement made in 1970 by him and by me, I have already dealt with that this afternoon. But the right hon. Gentleman—he can deny it if he wishes; I shall give way to him—gave a pledge that he would not take Britain in without the full-hearted consent of the British people. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer the question."] I am dealing with the question. The right hon. Gentleman negotiated terms totally unacceptable to us, and I am glad that his negotiator is now supporting us in changing those terms, as he has made clear. If a referendum requires legislation, that will certainly be put before the House.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRIME MINISTER (BROADCAST)

Mr. George Gardiner: asked the Prime Minister if he will place in the Library a transcript of his television interview on 30th June on the subject of future Government policies.

Mr. Norman Lamont: asked the Prime Minister whether he will place in the Library a copy of his interview on ITN on 30th June about the economy.

Mr. Nigel Lawson: asked the Prime Minister if he will place in the Library a transcript of his interview on Government policies on Independent Television News on 30th June.

The Prime Minister: I did so on 5th July, Sir.

Mr. Gardiner: In his interview with ITN, the Prime Minister made some observations on the difficulties of minority government. Will he now learn the lesson from the mauling which the Government have received in the House this week and drop the more extremist parts of his legislation in the interests of national unity, or does he agree with the Chancellor of the Exchequer's judgment, given on Leeds Radio, that the present Government are no longer capable of governing?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman, in referring to a mauling, will recall that there was not much of a mauling last night, when right hon. Members of the Opposition realised the implications of some of their irresponsible votes this week. But we have noted the lessons of the actions of the Opposition this week. We have noticed that they have their own reflation programme of several hundreds of millions of pounds—mainly to the people who need it least. What I said in the broadcast about the difficulties of minority government has been proved by the safe irresponsibility which began when the Opposition knew that there would not be a June election. The right hon. Gentlemen of the Opposition let through the Budget and the Finance Bill's Second Reading. As soon as they thought they were safe, they started to give us the tomfoolery that we have had this week. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we have taken to heart the lesson they sought to teach us in this matter.

Mr. Atkinson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Leader of the Opposition owes the trade unionists of this country a genuine apology for the situation which is now affecting every trade unionist? Is my right hon. Friend aware of the estimates now being made by the Treasury and others, that within the 12-months' period ending in November the retail price index will be up by no less than 18 per cent. and that trade unionists will not have more than a 12 per cent. increase in their take-home pay over the same period? That represents a 5 per cent. or 6 per cent. drop in their living standards as a result of the policies pursued in the past three-and-a-half years by the Conservative Party.

The Prime Minister: I have not yet done a costing—although I shall do so—of the right hon. Gentleman's debts to trade unionists or to the country as a whole. They run into several thousands of millions of pounds for the three-day working week alone. It is a fact which the whole House knows—because the Leader of the Opposition used to mention it—that price increases from abroad take several months to work into the cost of living index. There is also the threshold position. In fact, every increase in the cost of living index this year has been caused either by world events—

An Hon. Member: What about the Budget?

The Prime Minister: The Budget did not raise the retail price index; on the contrary. It did not do so, if subsidies are taken into account. In fact, the Budget was worsened by the fact that the Conservative Party misled the people about nationalised industry charges, which they said would require £500 million. They required £1,400 million, which they knew during the election and kept from the people. These things are also due to policies of the previous Government which are still working through.

Mr. Lamont: Does the Prime Minister recall the suggestion made by Mr. Murray and the TUC Economic Committee on 12th June, that as part of their contribution to the social contract wages should not increase by more than the rise in the cost of living since the last wage increase? May I ask the right hon. Gentleman one simple question:

can he name a single current wage claim which falls within those guidelines?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman, with his usual realism, will know that wage claims are often different from wage settlements. He will also be aware that in the social contract about which Mr. Murray was speaking on that occasion he and the TUC Economic Committee said—as I have repeatedly emphasised—that where price increases have been compensated by a threshold payment there should not be a further attempt to offset those increases by further wage increases if the threshold has dealt with it. Some wage settlements recently have gone far wider than most in the House would, I think, welcome. [An HON. MEMBER: "Which ones?"] I mentioned two last week. I shall mention a third now: the joint stock banks, which made inordinate profits in the last few months of the previous Government, are now making a large wage settlement to their employees at a time which makes the problems of those who are maintaining essential services in London much more difficult in the discussions on the London weighting allowance.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Nigel Lawson.

Mr. Lipton: May we get on to the business for next week?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman who had a Question down is being answered.

Mr. Nigel Lawson: As the Prime Minister has now admitted that the social contract has been breached on a number of occasions, will he tell the House what are the sanctions against breach of the social contract?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman, who is a student of these matters, knows that the social contract is a matter for responsibility in a democratic society and that the trade union movement is doing its utmost to achieve restraint in these matters. Stage 1, Stage 2 and Stage 3—for which we are still paying a heavy price in wage questions as well as other questions—having failed, we must all now do all we can to make a success of the social contract. I hope that Conservative Members, who fought the 1970 election on voluntary wage bargaining,


and the Leader of the Opposition, who tried to achieve a voluntary agreement and failed because he would not produce a fair Government policy, will support us in these matters.

Mr. Heath: Will the Prime Minister refresh his memory about the impact of the Chancellor's Budget? It is quite clear from the changes he made, leaving aside the nationalised industry prices—[Interruption.]—I am being generous to the right hon. Gentleman. Leaving aside the increases in those prices, the increase in the retail price index is at least 3 per cent. and probably nearer 4 per cent., by the deliberate action of the Chancellor.
The real point I want to put to the Prime Minister is that he says that working through the pipeline are a large number of increases, arising from the increases in world prices. Does he really believe that is possible? All through the time we were in Government he was saying that there was no such thing as an increase in world prices.

The Prime Minister: I do not accept the right hon. Gentleman's figures on the Budget. I think that they were put forward by his right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton (Mr. Carr) and refuted by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor. The right hon. Gentleman referred to nationalised industry prices. He has not explained why something that cost £1,400 million was announced to the country by his Government as costing £500 million. Did he know during the election that it would cost £1,400 million? Of course he did. Why did he not tell the country? Why did he say—[Interruption.] I shall come to the question of world prices. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the other matter. I have said that he knew that the nationalised industry increases would be £900 million more. Why did he not tell the country during the election? Will he answer that question? I noticed—

Mr. Evelyn King: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I ask your guidance in the context of the back bencher? We have dealt with three Questions in 22 minutes. During that time the Prime Minister has been on his feet for about 15 minutes. Is that fair to back benchers who seek to take some part in these proceedings?

Mr. Speaker: I think we might go rather faster if there were a little more order in the House.

The Prime Minister: Before I come to world prices, I remind the House that the right hon. Gentleman referred to nationalised industry prices, and I replied that he misled the country to the extent of £900 million, which he has to explain.
The right hon. Gentleman is wrong about world prices. I warned him about their effect when he was making light of them. [Interruption.] It is on the record in HANSARD. I told the right hon. Gentleman that they were important. But he has responsibility for the internal policies—the Housing Finance Act and other measures—that forced up the cost of living.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Heath: Will the Leader of the House please state next week's business?

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Edward Short): The business for next week will be as follows:

MONDAY, 22ND JULY—Completion of the remaining stages of the Finance Bill.

TUESDAY, 23RD JULY—Debate on the Economic Situation.

The Chairman of Ways and Means has announced Opposed Private Business for consideration.

Remaining stages of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (No. 2) Bill, of the Merchant Shipping Bill [Lords] and of the Northern Ireland (Young Persons) Bill [Lords].

WEDNESDAY, 24TH JULY—Supply [13th Allotted Day]: Conclusion of the debate on the Economic Situation.

Motion on passes for Members, etc.

Consideration of Lords amendments to the Housing (Scotland) Bill.

Proceedings on the Insurance Companies Bill [Lords], and on the Friendly Societies Bill [Lords], which are consolidation measures.

THURSDAY. 25TH JULY—Supply [14th Allotted Day]: The Question will be put on all ountstanding Votes, after which there will be a debate on a subject to


be announced. I am sorry that I cannot yet give the House a subject.

Consideration of Lords amendments to the Housing Bill.

FRIDAY, 26TH JULY—Remaining stages of the Road Traffic Bill [Lords].

Motion on the Electricity (Borrowing Powers) Order 1974.

Proceedings on the Solicitors Bill [Lords], which is a consolidation measure.

Second Reading of the Hare Coursing Bill.

MONDAY, 29TH JULY—Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill.

Mr. Heath: The Leader of the House will be aware that we are grateful to him for making an adjustment at our request to the business next week. Secondly, the Supply Day is our responsibility. We have not yet submitted to him a subject. We shall do so next week when he can make a statement to the House about it.
Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be making a major statement about economic policy on Monday afternoon before the two-day debate on Tuesday and Wednesday?

Mr. Short: Yes, my right hon. Friend feels that it would be for the convenience of the House if he were to make a statement on Monday, and he will be doing so.

Mr. George Lawson: As the subject matter for Thursday appears not yet to have been fixed, will my right hon. Friend ensure that we have a debate on that day on the report of the Scottish Select Committee on land use? Does my right hon. Friend agree that it would be a matter of great regret if that very important report were not debated before the House rises?

Mr. Short: Thursday, of course, is a Supply Day and the choice of the matter to be discussed is for the Opposition. The subject that my hon. Friend has raised is a very appropriate subject for the Scottish Grand Committee. I hope that the Committee will be able to meet before the Summer Recess.

Mr. Peyton: Will the Leader of the House give careful consideration to the possibility of giving half an hour for Prime Minister's Questions? That would be fair to his right hon. Friend and it might give the Prime Minister a chance to get round to answering something.

Mr. Short: I think that my right hon. Friend would possibly welcome that suggestion and I shall discuss it with him.

Mr. Lee: In view of yesterday's bomb outrage, which is the most recent of a large number of such episodes, may we have a debate before the recess on the general internal security situation in this country? Many hon. Members on both sides of the House have a wide degree of apprehension and concern about security.

Mr. Short: I think that we all share my hon. Friend's concern. I am afraid that there is not time to have a debate before the Summer Recess.

Mr. David Steel: I revert to the Scottish business to which the right hon. Gentleman referred. Is he aware that not only are we not having the traditional debate on the Scottish economy on the Floor of the House but that four meetings of the Scottish Grand Committee, two for the estimates and two for other matters, appear not to have been held? As business is arranged between the official Opposition and the Government, will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that opportunity is provided to discuss the White Paper on the constitution, the land report and the state of the Scottish economy? Why have not these meetings been held before the Summer Recess?

Mr. Short: As I understand it there are two days in a Session for debates on general matters. As we are considering about half a Session we are probably due for one meeting of the Scottish Grand Committee. I hope that Scottish Members will be able to agree among themselves in the normal way on the matter to be discussed.

Mr. Grylls: Will the right hon. Gentleman make a statement on the continuing appalling situation arising from the HANSARD printers' strike? I do not raise this matter in a partisan spirit. I do so because the strike is in danger of making parliamentary history. The strike has already lasted for three weeks and the


effect that it is having both inside and outside the House is a national disgrace. If the printers cannot continue to print HANSARD, will the right hon. Gentleman consider making temporary arrangements to do? For example, will he consider if necessary printing HANSARD abroad, at least giving us perhaps a weekly report so that we can do our business and so that people outside can follow our proceedings?

Mr. Short: I very much regret the inconvenience caused to hon. Members because of this dispute. Unfortunately the dispute continues. I have checked on the business coming before the House next week, and all the papers will be available.

Mr. Torney: In view of the bombing just down the road and the report from the Services Committee, will my right hon. Friend give consideration to having a debate upon the issue of security in this building?

Mr. Short: I imagine that the short debate next week on Members' passes will give some scope for that, but I cannot promise any opportunity for a general debate. I share my hon. Friend's concern.

Mr. Nigel Lawson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the day before yesterday at Question Time the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) made a statement that purported to be the view of the Expenditure Committee on certain spending cuts made by the last administration last December? Is he aware that the hon. Lady's statement seems to constitute a most flagrant breach of privilege as no report by the Expenditure Committee has been laid before the House and as the matter has not yet come before the Expenditure Committee? Will the right hon. Gentleman ask his hon. Friend to apologise to the House and to withdraw her most unfortunate statement?

Mr. Short: The hon. Gentleman has been here long enough—I recognise that he has not been here very long—to know that there is a procedure for dealing with alleged breaches of privilege. It is not the method that he has adopted.

Mrs. Renée Short: I was going to put a question to my right hon. Friend, but in

view of the intervention from the hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson) I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to point out that there are certain proprieties to be observed in this House if one wishes to refer to another Member.
In view of the situation within the National Health Service and the threats by a minority of consultants to withdraw their labour, will my right hon. Friend give time, before the House rises for the Summer Recess, for a debate on the National Health Service?

Mr. Short: I very much hope that the House will be able to rise for the Summer Recess on Thursday 1st August. I am afraid that there will not be time before then for a debate on the National Health Service. There is, of course, the debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill which would give scope for my hon. Friend to raise this matter.

Mr. Speaker: I have been informed that the hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson) wrote to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) informing her that it was his intention to raise this matter.

Mr. McNamara: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the overwhelming majority of the British people will applaud his decision to have a debate on the Hare Coursing Bill next Friday and that they will not look with favour on any hon. Member who tries to use a procedural method to prevent the House from coming to a decision?

Mr. Short: I am sure that that is the case. I give my hon. Friend an undertaking to table a motion to ensure that the Bill has a two-hour debate.

Mr. Kimball: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House on what grounds he has decided to select for this undertaking one particular Private Member's Bill in view of the list of other important Private Members' Bills, for example, on tied cottages, women in Scotland who cannot get divorces by consent and farriers? On what grounds has he decided to cheat in this way?

Mr. Short: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman has referred to this matter as cheating. It is not cheating at all. All Governments occasionally give time to Private Members' Bills. I have given


time to the Hare Coursing Bill for two reasons. The first reason is that the practice of hare coursing is repugnant to most people in this country. The second reason is that the Bill, or a similar Bill, has been before the House for a good many years, and I think it is time that the House had an opportunity to express itself.

Mr. Molloy: Will my right hon. Friend consider having a debate on an issue which is mystifying many people—namely, that many Conservative hon. Members and Liberal hon. Members at Question Time press the Government to increase their building programme so as to reduce homelessness, to increase the social services and to help the disabled, yet on Report on the Finance Bill they do their best to prevent the Government obtaining the necessary resources to carry out the very things for which they have been asking?

Mr. Short: I am sure that what has happened on the Finance Bill will have been noticed by the electorate.

Sir Frederic Bennett: I think that most hon. Members have been increasingly baffled during today's Question Time about when and why the Prime Minister favours a referendum on any particular subject. If we do not have time for a debate on the matter, can we arrange for the Prime Minister to give the House his criteria for why and when he favours a referendum on the one issue that pleases the left wing of his Party?

Mr. Short: No, but the Labour Party's manifesto will do so in the next election.

Mr. Faulds: When can we have a statement on the Government's intentions on public lending rights? This is a matter that can be easily introduced by the Minister presently responsible as he has available to him an excellent paper that was prepared by myself.

Mr. Short: I know of my hon. Friend's paper and I agree that it was excellent. I promise that in the next Session my hon. Friend will make a statement on public lending rights.

Mr. Adley: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many thousands of people working on Concorde find their livelihood in jeopardy and their future a matter of

grave concern because the Government still have not made up their minds on Concorde? Some weeks ago, the right hon. Gentleman promised a statement within a matter of a few weeks. Since we have nearly reached the end of this Session, will he now give a categorical assurance that the Government will make a firm statement before the House rises for the recess?

Mr. Short: I realise the importance of an early statement, especially to those who work on Concorde. But, as the hon. Gentleman realises, the matter is to be discussed in Paris this weekend. I will ensure that there is a statement at the earliest possible moment.

Mr. Spriggs: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many of us think that it would be wrong to rise for the Summer Recess while the country is in the present dangerous position with regard to internal security? Many of us are very concerned about what happened in the Tower of London yesterday and what has happened or is happening in other parts of the country. We believe that it would be wrong for my right hon. Friend to refuse time to debate this very important matter and to leave it in its present state of flux. Will he reconsider his reply?

Mr. Short: As I have said, the Government share the concern of hon. Members about this matter. There will be an opportunity to raise the matter on the Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill but there will not, I am afraid, be other time for debate. Watching the House at work today, I am sure that we all need a holiday.

Mr. Rippon: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that two weeks ago he said that he would consider the constitutional implications of the speech by the Secretary of State for Industry in the debate on EEC documents, when he appeared to challenge the validity of explanatory memoranda, circulars and similar documents issued by previous administrations? I have corresponded with the Leader of the House on the matter. When does the right hon. Gentleman expect to give an answer, because the House may wish to debate it before the recess?

Mr. Short: I do not recall that I gave an undertaking to make a statement in the House, but I will refresh my memory. This is a very complicated matter. I will look at what the right hon. and learned Gentleman has said.

Mr. Christopher Price: Will my right hon. Friend think again about this serious demand for a debate on the internal security situation before the House rises? Is he aware that yesterday one of my constituents was murdered and three others, including two children, were severely maimed, probably for life, in the incident at the Tower of London? Is my right hon. Friend aware that there will be increasing puzzlement in the country at large if we do not show as a House of Commons, by a full debate on the matter, the seriousness with which I am sure we all regard the situation?

Mr. Short: As I have said, our condemnation of what has happened this week cannot be too strong and we share my hon. Friend's view. The only point is that between now and the end of the Session there just is not time, apart from the two opportunities I have mentioned. There is to be a debate on security and there is opportunity on the Consolidated Fund Bill.

Sir G. Sinclair: When may we expect a statement on secretarial assistance, as promised?

Mr. Short: Towards the end of next week or the beginning of the following week, without any doubt.

Mr. Lipton: My right hon. Friend was good enough to say that he hoped to adjourn for the recess on Thursday 1st August. It would equally help the subterranean pre-election activities by hon. Members if he would tell us when we are coming back after the recess.

Mr. Short: I hope to be able to give that date to the House next week.

Mr. Amery: The right hon. Gentleman has apologised for the inconvenience caused to hon. Member by non-publication of HANSARD but does not seem to have any remedy for putting the situation right. Equally, he does not seem able to find time for discussion about security in London. Would it not be better to have a debate about our own affairs and

about why HANSARD is not being published and what remedy he can suggest, or about the internal security of the nation, than a debate about hare coursing?

Mr. Short: As I have pointed out already, there is a debate next week about internal security. That will give an opportunity to raise this sort of question. The difficulty over the printing of HANSARD has occurred many times before. I have apologised for the inconvenience and I am sure that all hon. Members will bear with the difficulties.

Mr. Patrick McNair-Wilson: Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that, despite the shortage of time, if the need arises an emergency debate on the situation in Cyprus and any involvement we may have will be considered during next week?

Mr. Short: Yes, Sir. I give that assurance; if the occasion demands it—certainly.

Mr. Winterton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Youth and Community Bill received an unopposed Second Reading and is welcomed widely by both sides of the House and outside the House? Will he give an assurance that he will provide time for its remaining stages before the end of the Session?

Mr. Short: I am sorry, but I cannot give that undertaking.

Mr. Gow: Is the right hon. Gentleman able to confirm that he will not now be laying the order, to which he referred two weeks ago, relating to the entitlement of civil servants to stand for Parliament?

Mr. Short: As I said last week, I repeat my undertaking that I will not lay this order until the House has had the opportunity to discuss the matter. But I very much regret that in the meantime 36 young people are denied their civic rights.

Mr. Hastings: Will the right hon Gentleman address himself yet again to the matter of security and the latest vicious crime by the IRA? Will he recognise that to introduce something as provocative and as controversial as hare coursing in preference and to claim that there is not time to debate internal security is unacceptable to the House?


Nor will it do to tuck it away in the middle of the night in a debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill. Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that d debate would at least give an opportunity for the Government to seek to reassure an increasingly anxious nation?

Mr. Short: The hon. Gentleman sits in Opposition. The Opposition have a whole day at their disposal next week and I suggest that they use it for the purpose he suggests.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We must move on.

CONSOLIDATED FUND BILL (PROCEDURE)

Mr. Speaker: For the debate on Monday 29th July on the Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill hon. Members may hand in to my office by 9.30 on the morning of Thursday 25th July their names and the topic which they wish to raise. The ballot will be carried out as on the last occasion. An hon. Member may hand in only his own name and one topic.
The debate on the Second Reading of the Bill is, to quote page 729 of Erskine May,
commensurate with the whole range of administrative policy".
It covers, for example, all the main estimates for the current financial year in House of Commons Papers Nos. 13 and 31, and the revised estimates presented since then in House of Commons Papers Nos. 55, 119, 202, 203 and 204. It will be in order on Second Reading to raise any topic falling within the compass of these estimates.
I shall put out the result of the ballot later on Thursday 25th July.

COMPLAINT OF PRIVILEGE

Mr. Speaker: I have now to rule on the complaint made yesterday by the hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Tyler).
My ruling is that I consider that the matter of the complaint made by the hon.

Member relating to a communication which he had received from the Secretary to a branch of the National Union of Journalists is such that I would permit a motion relating to it to be given precedence over the Orders of the Day.
However, I should inform the House that I have today received a letter from the General Secretary of the National Union of Journalists in the following terms:
I learned yesterday from Mr. Tyler's statement in the House of Commons that Mr. George Findlay, a member of the National Union of Journalists, had made complaints to our Glasgow Freelance Branch against other members of the NUJ who are Members of Parliament. I was not aware of the complaints until Mr. Tyler made his statement.
The rules of the NUJ make provision for a member complaining against another about a trades union or professional grievance. They provide a fair complaints and appeal procedure.
I have never known them invoked in a matter touching the Parliamentary rights and duties of a member of the Union who is a Member of Parliament. They were not designed for that purpose, and I made clear yesterday that in my view any attempt to use them for that purpose was extremely ill advised.
On my advice Mr. Findlay last night withdrew his complaint against Mr. Tyler and other Members of Parliament. I ask you to accept my assurance on behalf of the Union, its branch, and Mr. Findlay that the complaints have been withdrawn.
I should be grateful, too. if you would accept my apology on behalf of the Union for you and your House having been troubled with this matter, and for any apparent offence by the National Union of Journalists to your, Mr. Tyler's or Parliament's dignity and powers. No such offence was intended.
I have given these assurances and apology to Mr. Tyler by telephone and by a copy of this letter.

Mr. Tyler: I have received a copy of this letter and fully accept for myself the apology and the withdrawal. I hope that other hon. Members involved in this affair will be able to do so as well. I hope that you, Mr. Speaker, and the House will agree that as our privileges have now been re-asserted the matter can be left and no immediate action need be taken.

Mr. Speaker: I hope that in those circumstances the House will decide to leave the matter there.

MAPLIN

The Secretary of State for Trade and President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Peter Shore): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I will now make a statement about the review of the Maplin third London airport project.
On assuming office, the Government undertook to re-examine certain major transport projects, and on 21st March I announced that I had set in hand a reappraisal of the Maplin project for a third London airport. This has now been completed and the report of the reappraisal has been published today.
Seven main conclusions emerge from the reappraisal. First, the forecasts of air passenger demand are significantly lower than was envisaged previously. Secondly, up to 1990 no further main runways will be required at any of the four London area airports at Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton. Thirdly, the passenger-handling capacity required to accommodate the forecast traffic up to 1990 is not now dependent on a new airport at Maplin.
Fourthly, the noise nuisance is expected to be much lower than was forecast by the Roskill Commission. Fifthly, whether or not Maplin were built, capacity at Heathrow would need to be expanded from its present 20 million passengers a year to 38 million and at Gatwick from 6 million to 16 million. Sixthly, beyond that, further capacity would be required from the mid-1980s which could be provided through a new airport at Maplin or by some combination of developments at existing London area airports with the possibility of some diversion of London traffic to regional airports. Finally, the cost of accommodating the forecast traffic at Maplin is now estimated at about £650 million. This is nearly twice as much as the next most expensive alternative considered in the reappraisal.
In the light of this, the Government consider that the case for a new airport at Maplin has not been established, and they have decided to abandon it.
The review has particularly examined the question of aircraft noise. I am deeply conscious of the distress suffered by those who live near airports. However, the review shows that Maplin would not have

had a great effect on total noise disturbance. First, if Maplin were built it could not affect the level of noise at existing airports before 1985. Secondly, by 1990 at London area airports nearly all air transport movements are expected to be by new, quieter types of aircraft. This means that, with or without Maplin, there will be a marked improvement in current noise levels at these airports. But there can be no relaxation in our efforts, and I am determined to achieve a further and progressive improvement in noise by tackling it at the source on the aircraft, by intensifying night jet curfews, by revised operational techniques and by improved facilities for noise insulation.
I asked for special consideration to be given to the rôle of regional airports. Consultants were commissioned to undertake a separate examination of the scope for diverting traffic to the regions. Three main conclusions emerged from that work. First, to achieve any significant diversion would involve transferring large numbers of passengers with origins and destinations in the South-East. Secondly, passenger demand suggests diversion to Bournemouth, Birmingham and East Midlands rather than to airports further afield. Thirdly, major diversions to the regional airports could involve noise and other environmental problems in the areas concerned. Nevertheless, I have asked my officials to consider the regional possibilities in greater depth, both to relieve the pressure on the South-East and to help in the development of other regions. I should like to see as much traffic transferred as possible.
The review was conducted in cooperation with the British Airports Authority and the Civil Aviation Authority but it was not possible in the time available to engage in consultations with the local authorities and other organisations affected. A number of submissions have been received from local authorities and we shall now be consulting them and other bodies concerned about the way the future traffic will be handled.
I am sure that the House will wish to debate the matter of London air passenger traffic as soon as it has had a reasonable time to consider the review.

Mr. Heseltine: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain how the Government


have reached so final a decision in cooperation with the British Airports Authority when only yesterday the chairman of that authority said that it was impossible to make a confident forecast of future traffic? Will he now appreciate that in deciding to abandon the third London airport the Government have closed for all time the option of transferring noise away from the airports of the South-East, particularly Heathrow and Gatwick?
The right hon. Gentleman says that the major diversion to the regional airports could involve "noise and other environmental problems in the areas concerned". May I ask him to explain what is now to happen to Luton, Stansted and Southend? Will he publish the detailed plans which I, as a Minister, asked the Department to prepare, showing the precise impact of noise on the communities now condemned to live under a growing and permanent noise problem? Would it not be better if the House had debated this report before the Government made their final decision?

Mr. Shore: When the decision to go ahead with Maplin was announced three years ago by the right hon. Member for Knutsford (Mr. Davies) there was no debate before the decision was taken. I know that this is difficult but I would ask the hon. Member to look seriously at the report published this afternoon. It indicates a substantial change in expectations and circumstances. I think he will find in it considerable reassurance to deal with his concern about noise as it may affect other airports in the South-East.
As for the hon. Gentleman's point about being confident about any airport strategy, I would have thought that the one thing which both sides of the House might exercise was a certain humility when dealing with airport planning. I have in mind not just Maplin but Stansted before that and the Royal Commission's recommendations for Cublington. We would all be ill-advised to say that we know now and for all time just what is the right solution. What I say is that I think we have sufficient information to make a reasoned judgment against Maplin and that, further, we shall have sufficient time to consider alternatives in changing technology in the years ahead.

Mr. Russell Kerr: Will my right hon. Friend accept the congratulations of an overwhelming majority of hon. Members on this side of the House on an obvious and sensible decision? Will he assure the House that there will be no question of heavy compensation for contractors and others who were so obviously licking their lips at the invitation of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite?

Mr. Shore: I shall have to consider the second point put by my hon. Friend. I should not like to think of anyone licking his lips, at any rate without due and proper reason to do so.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his remarks. I do not think that it is possible in any statement on airport policy to have, as it were, unanimous support. However, I think that the statement will be warmly received in many parts of the country.

Mr. Richard Wainwright: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the abandonment of the Maplin project is welcome to, amongst many others, the Liberal Party, although we regret that it is not presented as part of a national airports policy?
I should like to put one question on what the right hon. Gentleman described as the further capacity which would be required from the mid-1980s. Is he satisfied—if so, will he explain why—that an examination by his officials of the regional possibilities is adequate? Will he consider asking his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister for a wider inquiry into the co-ordination of internal and international transport?

Mr. Shore: I am not yet satisfied that we have given anything like a sufficient examination to the possibilities of the development of regional airports and the diversion of traffic from the South-East. I remind the hon. Gentleman that we already have in hand—I do not claim credit for it; it was set in hand by my predecessor—a whole series of studies being conducted under the auspices of the CAA in different regions of the country assessing their future airport requirements. We are coming soon to the point where we shall have, as it were, a clearer map of the country in terms of airport needs and development. On that basis it should be possible to move towards


a sensible and thought-out national airports plan.

Mr. Newens: I wholeheartedly welcome the statement made by my right hon. Friend. As one who had serious doubts all the way through about the case for a third London airport, may I ask my right hon. Friend to make it clear that there is no question whatsoever of using Stansted as the third London airport on the scale that was originally proposed in the mid-1960s? Many of us who took part in the campaign against Stansted would argue that we were, and have been proved, correct. Will he now make it clear that there is no possibility whatsoever of reverting to that option?

Mr. Shore: I understand my hon. Friend's concern. I should have to refresh my mind on precisely what was being proposed in the previous report for Stansted. Within the report that is now available to the House three or four options are described. They include different patterns and mixes of traffic among the four existing airports in the South-East. One point that I think will emerge from it, to give my hon. Friend some reassurance, is that in all four options the number of people who will suffer from the noise contour—I am taking the 35 NNI contour—will reduce over the period ahead.

Sir D. Walker-Smith: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman about the implications for Stansted, in which I have a close constituency interest, in the context of this possible pattern or mix of uses to which he referred? Will he ensure that if and in so far as there is any consequential increase in traffic at Stansted, it takes the form of a switch to passenger traffic in substitution for training flights, and thereby brings a welcome abatement of noise? Further, will he bear in mind in the future use of the airport its optimum use not only from the aviation point of view but from the environmental aspect with special reference to the effect on amenities at Bishop Stortford, Sawbridgeworth and adjacent villages?

Mr. Shore: These are valid points. These and no doubt other considerations, not only from the Stansted area, will have

to be thoroughly examined and consultations held with all concerned before any decisions are made.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: My right hon. Friend will be aware that the people of Essex generally and, in particular, of Tower Hamlets will be pleased about the report. May I, without prejudice, ask about an ancillary problem connected with the seaport at Maplin? Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that that will not be adversely affected by this decision because, as he will know, there is a vast difference? [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Will he keep a completely open mind and look at the seaport as a different subject?

Mr. Shore: I agree that there is indeed a separate argument about the future need for a seaport at Maplin or further down the Thames. However, it is not for me to make a decision on that matter. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment is considering the proposals put forward by the PLA.

Mr. Hordern: Has the right hon. Gentleman received the representations of the West Sussex, East Sussex and Surrey County Councils on the consequences to West Sussex particularly if Maplin is not proceeded with? Is he aware of the great concern which would be experienced by industrialists in Crawley in my constituency who suffer from an acute shortage of labour and will now be competing for labour with Gatwick Airport? Is he also aware of the destruction of the environment in West Sussex and of the problems of noise which are bound to occur if the decision is carried through?

Mr. Shore: Representations were indeed made. Written documents were sent by the counties concerned. Again, while I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's anxiety, I think that these matters will be better understood and more sensibly discussed when the report has been read and properly examined. Some of the anxieties about the environment and noise—I am almost surprised to say this—are notably diminished in the forecast period ahead.

Mr. Moonman: I think that to save £650 million is a good afternoon's work. Although my right hon. Friend has urged humility in the matter, may I say that this is a specific example of a Labour


Party commitment and pledge at the General Election which has been kept? Therefore, will he encourage his right hon. Friends now to speed up many of the decisions which have not been taken during the last few years in anticipation of the inquiry on, for example, road building and improved siting, and to advance resources to the new town of Basildon?

Mr. Shore: I think that, provided that the House is satisfied on the general argument, it will inevitably feel satisfaction that a substantial saving in public expenditure will be achieved by this decision.

Mr. Kirk: While we must study with some care the paper which I understand the right hon. Gentleman has laid, may I ask him at this stage to refresh his memory to the extent that two public inquiries have come down against any kind of third London airport at Stansted? Secondly, will he indicate what consultations he proposes to have with local authorities in future? Thirdly, will he indicate when we are to have a debate on the matter? Fourthly, when are we likely to have any definitive decision about the use of airports like Stansted, Luton and Gatwick?

Mr. Shore: It is absolutely right that in our thinking about the proper pattern and distribution of air traffic in the period ahead we should not only pay close attention to what has previously been said, because some of the material in the reports which are available is of value, but take full account of the representations made by those who are representative of the communities which are likely to be affected. I have no kind of absolutely preconceived view about how best to carry out the consultations, but I want them to be thorough, because I fully understand that we must get the maximum amount of understanding and acceptance by those who are affected.
I am sure that the House will wish to debate the matter, but that is for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to decide.

Mr. Tom Ellis: In offering my congratulations to my right hon. Friend, may I ask him whether he agrees that congratulations are due to the Secretary of State for the Environment, who laboured while in Opposition towards this end?

Mr. Shore: Many hon. Members would wish to endorse that generous tribute to my right hon. Friend, who for a number of years, and at a very early date, expressed deeply-held scepticism about the project.

Sir S. MeAdden: The Minister will not be surprised that I am delighted to hear of his decision. Is he aware that I am particularly gratified that the information he has had from these independent and non-political bodies, which has led him to this decision, has merely confirmed what I have been urging on successive Ministers for years; in particular, the question of tackling noise at its source? Is he aware how gratified we are to know that he intends to tackle this problem in this way rather than by transferring noise from one place to another?

Mr. Shore: I think anyone living in an area where it is proposed to build a new airport would take the view that the wrong way to deal with noise is to transfer it from one area to another. Equally, those who live in areas where airports already exist can be expected to take a somewhat different view. The important thing here is that serious consideration has been given to the problem by people who are reasonably qualified to do it—I say "reasonably" because there is a great element of judgment and discretion in the whole thing—and have come out with the report which has led my colleagues and me to our conclusions.

Mr. Sedgemore: Would my right hon. Friend accept that this is a decision welcomed not only in Britain but particularly in those places where people are capable of taking a wider interest and view? Can he say whether any discussions are taking place about the future control of Luton Airport? Is there any question of handing over control from the local authority to the British Airports Authority? Can he give any projected estimates of passenger movements in the mid-1980s at Luton Airport?

Mr. Shore: I cannot reply to that question without notice. I am aware that a considerable amount of concern has been felt by people living in the Luton area about the plan and the activities of the Luton authority. I have looked at representations made to me and I shall be watching the situation very closely.

Sir G. Sinclair: Is the Minister aware that his statement will bring a sense of shock and anger to a great number of people living in the South-East and affected by Gatwick Airport? What steps does he propose to take to limit the growing congestion that spreads out from Gatwick into the green belt area, in view of the proposal that 16 million, instead of 6 million passengers will be passing through the airport every year? What steps will he take in the meantime to limit night flights in the area?

Mr. Shore: Those are particular problems. It would not be right for me, in presenting a document at the present time when we are considering options for the future, to say in detail how particular problems will be dealt with if we adopt particular options.

Mr. Leslie Huckfield: Would my right hon. Friend accept that most of us on the Government side feel he has made a very sensible, correct and comprehensive statement? Will he also accept that there is a need for two further statements? First, there is, all over the country now in municipally-operated airports such as Castle Donington, a great deal of uncertainty about the future. Would he accept that we should have a statement on the national airports policy very soon? He has admitted that we have a need to augment the programme of research and development into quieter aircraft engines. Accepting that this is the only genuine solution to quieter aeroplanes and aircraft noise, will he now give due consideration to augmenting the programme of research and development carried on by his Department into quieter aeroplane engines?

Mr. Shore: I said I shall pay more attention to regional airports. I hope that very soon we shall have the remaining regional airport studies, which will be of great assistance to us. I have no doubt that quieter aircraft will play an enormously important part in the future in giving relief to many people who are at present suffering from the noisy jet aircraft of today. I will certainly consider any practical steps that I can take to increase or improve our research and development effort.

Mr. Heath: Is the Secretary of State aware that we shall study the report carefully, perhaps with a certain scepticism?
What has now been announced completely fits in with the prejudices of the Government when in Opposition. It is now known that the staff of the Maplin Development Authority were stood down, or were told that they were to be stood down, when the Secretary of State announced his review, without even waiting for the results of that review.
Leaving that on one side, is it not correct to say that what the Secretary of State has announced today to Londoners in particular and to people around Gatwick, quite apart from Stansted and Luton, is that double the number of passengers will be brought into these airports—with all that follows from that, including road congestion, communications congestion and congestion of every other kind, as well as noise—and moreover that that will be permanent? That is what the Secretary of State is now telling Londoners and all those who are affected by the airports at Gatwick, Southend, Stansted and Luton. Those are the hard facts of the case.
Secondly, the Secretary of State says the further facilities will be required by the mid-eighties—by 1985. As in this country it takes between eight and 10 years, alas, to create a major airport, it is evident that decisions should be taken now about what is to happen in 1985, otherwise the situation for Londoners and those living in the South-East can only become even worse than what the Secretary of State announced this afternoon.
Of course it is understandable that those with constituencies affected should feel very strongly about it. Those who feel that they have been relieved from Maplin may express their thanks. Others in other parts of the country may take the simple view that money will be saved. But there is beyond all this a national interest, and a very large national interest at stake both in personal communications and trade communications. I do not believe it can be in the national interest for the Secretary of State to indicate that we are to have the worst airport facilities available of any European. North American or Australasian country.

Mr. Shore: I know the right hon. Gentleman has a particular personal investment—I do not mean that in any derogatory sense—in the Maplin airport project, because it was while his Government were in office that the project was given the go-ahead. Before he accuses us of making prejudiced decisions I ask him to look at the study. Not only will it give him food for thought but, in addition, he will find part of the answer to the worries which he claimed that Londoners and others would be feeling about this decision.
I shall take two points to illustrate this. First, even if we had gone ahead with Maplin nothing could have prevented the massive development of London Airport and other airports in order to accommodate the traffic growth which is expected between now and 1985. That was inevitable because it would take that period of time, 11 years, in order to bring Maplin into action.
The right hon. Gentleman will also find that when Londoners and others actually examine the content of the report they will discover not just that traffic will increase but that there will be a noticeable and substantial reduction of noise, so much so that all the scenarios in the document, which is now available, indicate that the noise levels will come down in 1990 to about one-fifth or one-sixth, at the worst, of what they are today.

Sir Bernard Braine: Is the Secretary of State aware that, as far as his announcement goes, it will give considerable relief to the people of South-East Essex, although I can understand the feelings of some of my hon. Friends who have airports in their constituencies. However. it does not altogether remove our anxieties. Take, for example, Southend Airport. May I have a firm assurance that that airport, which is ringed around with population, will not, on the excuse of abandoning Maplin, be expanded at the expense of my constituents?

Mr. Shore: The hon. Member should rightly stand up for his constituents. As he will see from the report, there is no serious likelihood of Southend being expanded, but he must not ask me to close the door on consultation and consideration before the discussions which I have already announced take place.

Mr. R. C. Mitchell: Will my right hon. Friend ask the Secretary of State for the Environment to make an early statement about the future of the seaport at Maplin? To most of us the scheme seems more ridiculous than ever now that the airport has been dropped. Does my right hon. Friend realise that he has carried out only half the election pledge about which my right hon. Friend spoke earlier?

Mr. Shore: These are two quite different matters. While I am certain that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment will be anxious to come to an early decision, I am sure also that he would not wish that decision to be hurried or made without due regard to the port needs of Britain, and that includes the Port of London as well as Southampton.

Mr. S. James A. Hill: Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that the transport infrastructure and the investment that were planned were intended for both the airport and the seaport, and that there cannot be one in isolation? Will he advise the Secretary of State for the Environment that a complex which will support only a seaport is no longer economically viable, and that the remarks by the Chairman of the British Transport Docks Board that Southampton is the most appropriate area for the new extended container port should be acted upon now?

Mr. Shore: This matter has yet to be decided, but the view which the hon. Member expressed is certainly not shared by the PLA.

Mr. MacCormick: Does the Secretary of State appreciate that his announcement will be widely welcomed in Scotland where there was a great deal of worry at so much money being spent on Maplin? In view of the industrial developments in Scotland, should not an urgent opportunity now be taken to consider the airport situation there to provide increased internal services and more links between Scotland and abroad?

Mr. Shore: We are giving serious consideration to the undoubtedly growing needs of Scotland for improved airport facilities.

Mr. McNamara: In half congratulating my right hon. Friend, may I remind him that the concept of Maplin was not only


for an airport but for a major seaport complex? Will he bear in mind not only the responsibilities of the Secretary of State for the Environment for ports but his own responsibilities for the changing nature of seaborne traffic? Does he not now think that the influences of his Department should be brought to bear to cancel the seaport project?

Mr. Shore: I would certainly not come to such a conclusion prematurely, and I would not necessarily come to such a conclusion at all. I insist, however, as I am sure my right hon. Friend will, that the matter should be looked at in a serious and sober way.

Mr. Grylls: The Secretary of State has behaved in an arrogant way over this issue. He has taken a decision on a report that everyone knew was being prepared, and has turned a scheme down in a rather petulant way, telling the House the decision without the House having taken any part in it. Of course there is a downturn in traffic at the moment as a result of the international situation. In the past these downturns have been shown to be only temporary and the traffic turns up again in a year or two's time. There will then be increased traffic at the airports nearer London, such as Heathrow and Gatwick. Will he give an assurance to people living near Heathrow that there will be no increase in the number of flights in view of the greater use that will be made of wide-bodied aircraft? That is what the people are worried about. They fear a big increase in flights and noise.

Mr. Shore: There will be a great increase in traffic. The central estimate is 85 million passenger movements by 1990. That is the centre of a range. There could be more people travelling if more optimistic asumptions are made about traffic growth, or there could be fewer. The airport capacity and the runway capacity will be there, however.

Mr. Dalyell: Does the reference to regional policy mean that in these studies consideration has been given to positive action for direct flights from, say, Edinburgh to Brussels, Frankfurt and Copenhagen, and that sort of thing?

Mr. Shore: We must first establish the regional airports. The services which

use those airports are a most important but secondary matter.

Mr. Allason: Does the Secretary of State accept that those living in residential areas and suffering from aircraft noise do not want to export it to other people; they want to export it over the sea? That is the only sensible solution. Does he realise that his statement about a reduction by one-fifth or one-sixth of the present aircraft noise will be regarded with great disbelief by the whole population? His claim will be closely examined. We would not accent merely four-fifths or five-sixths of present aircraft noise. Does he realise that those who suffer aircraft noise are now fed up with it and want to suffer it no more in the way he is threatening them they will have to put up with it.

Mr. Shore: I understand how the hon. Member feels. Like many other hon. Members, I live in an area which is plagued with aircraft noise. It is no good the hon. Member claiming for himself a kind of monopoly of emotion and feeling on the matter on behalf of his constituents. Many of us have constituents affected by aircraft noise, and we have to find the right solution. I did not say that aircraft noise would be reduced by one-fifth or one-sixth. I said reduced to one-fifth or one-sixth.

Mr. Hastings: Does the Secretary of State recognise that in spite of what he said, and the plaudits he received, literally hundreds of thousands of people living around London's airports will be deeply disturbed at the implications of the decision? Will he refer to the report he has received recently from the county councils of East and West Sussex, Hertfordshire and Surrey which deals with the planning implications of abandoning Maplin? It is not simply a question of handling freight and people. It is a question of new schools and services, houses, and so on. It is a question of the pressure on labour that the decision will inevitably create. Did the British Airports Authority agree with the decision?

Mr. Shore: The British Airports Authority and the CAA contributed heavily to the work done in the report. They contributed significantly to the document which produced the range of


options. The decision is for the Government, and I have not thought it right to ask those organisations whether they supported the decision or not. That, no doubt, is something they will wish to make plain.
On the county council submissions, I accept wholly that it would not be enough simply to look at these matters from the point of view of the numbers of air traffic movements and things like that. We must look at the wider planning implications. In any consultative process that we embark upon I shall certainly see to it that the Department of the Environment and the other Departments are involved as much as we are, so that all these factors can be properly considered.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We must stop some time. I will call two more hon. Members from each side.

Mr. Gwilym Roberts: In congratulating my right hon. Friend, may I ask him whether he will assure the House that the important saving here will not be frittered away in expenditure on other airports such as Stansted, Luton and Southend but that public expenditure on transport will be more and more concentrated on the form of public transport which affects 95 per cent. of the people of this country—buses, railways and similar methods of transport?

Mr. Shore: My hon. Friend has gone on to a different point, although obviously a very important point, in wishing to see the total amount of expenditure on transport reviewed as a whole and not just in terms of one particular service. I can only say that I have primarily to consider the anticipated growth of air transport and how it can best be accommodated in the airports of this country.

Mr. Crouch: The right hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to be told that my constituents at Whitstable and Herne Bay will be very relieved at his decision to abandon completely the idea of an airport on Maplin Sands. I welcome that wholeheartedly because I believe that is a correct decision in the national interest. I have felt that it would be wrong to build an airport there on the ground that it was the wrong place for an airport and that it would never have been successful

or have served the nation, particularly the Midlands and the North.
May I ask the right. hon. Gentleman to tell the House, if not today then later, at an appropriate time, whether he is determined to kill Maplin and lay the ghost of Maplin altogether and not allow a seaport to be developed there in the terms already described and anticipated by the Port of London Authority—a seaport to take tankers of 500,000 tons in the narrows of the Thames Estuary when, particularly with the advent of North Sea oil, we may well become oil exporters rather than oil importers and the location of such an oil terminal may have to be in a more advantageous site?

Mr. Shore: In my statement I have done the best I can to lay the ghost of Maplin airport, but it would be quite wrong of me to start trying to lay other ghosts, particularly the ghost of Maplin seaport. That is a matter for a separate study and must be subject to a later announcement. I well remember the hon. Gentleman's original scepticism about Maplin. Of course, there was always a strong case against it, even on the earliest assumptions, just as there was always a case for it.

Mr. Sandelson: Will the right hon. Gentleman take it from me that while a majority of residents in my constituency, many of whom live in areas adjacent to London Airport, will congratulate him, on balance, on the decision he has taken with regard to Maplin, there is very deep concern throughout the whole of this area and in other constituencies around London Airport about the whole issue of air noise, air nuisance, pollution and so on? May I ask the Secretary of State whether, in view of the feeling that no Government have yet given sufficient attention to these problems, he will consider setting up a special inquiry in regard to the whole question of air noise, to give people in this and other areas throughout the country the assurance that proper consideration is being given to these problems at national level?

Mr. Shore: I will give consideration to what the hon. Gentleman has suggested but I would reiterate what I said in my statement—that I was determined to achieve a further progressive improvement


in noise by tackling it at source—the aircraft themselves—by intensifying night jet curfews, by revised operational techniques and by improved facilities for noise insulation.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Given that the growth in air traffic requires a massive increase in the size of London Airport, how can it be said that there is no need for an airport at Maplin? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that my constituents and millions of the people living around London Airport—there are millions—will hear with profound scepticism his forecast of noise reduction in the light of their experience of similar promises and what has subsequently happened over past years? Does he realise that the decision which he has announced today means that as far ahead as we can see there will be night movements at Heathrow and also that the noisier types of aircraft which have not yet been phased out, and will not be phased out in the next seven to 10 years, will still be operating from London Airport, whereas had Maplin been built both the night movements and the noisier types of aircraft could have been moved there? This announcement will therefore produce profound disappointment, in some cases amounting almost to despair, in areas immediately adjacent to London Airport.

Mr. Shore: May I repeat to the hon. and learned Gentleman that if the decision I have announced had been precisely opposite, had I said that we would go ahead at full speed with Maplin, we would

not have brought it into operation until 1985? In that 11-year period we would have had to cater for a very substantial volume of increased air traffic movement at the existing airports of London and the South-East. What we are dealing with beyond that is a very important and significant fact, that new types of aircraft are coming into operation increasingly and that, on all the estimates available to us, a very substantial change for the better in the noise situation will emerge.

BILL PRESENTED

EDUCATION (AWARDS AND GRANTS)

Mr. Prentice, supported by Mr. Gerald Fowler and Dr. John Gilbert, presented a Bill to make further provision with respect to awards and grants by local education authorities: and the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 19th July 1974, and to be printed. [Bill 97.]

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 73A (Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments),
That the Legal Advice and Assistance (Scotland) (Financial Conditions) Regulations 1974 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments.
That the Legal Aid (Scotland) (Financial Conditions) Regulations 1974 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments.—[Mr. James A. Dunn.]

Question agreed to.

PAY BOARD (ABOLITION)

4.58 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Michael Foot): I beg to move,
That the Counter-Inflation (Abolition of Pay Board) Order 1974, a draft of which was laid before this House on 9th July, be approved.
In view of the lateness of the hour I will seek to abbreviate the remarks I was proposing to address to the House. I am sure nobody will worry about that, but I am sure it is also understood that the Government and the country regard this as an important matter, and, therefore, although we may not have a longer time to discuss it, that does not mean that we do not realise the significance of what we are proposing.
I would say as a preliminary remark that undoubtedly the order for which I am seeking the approval of the House is a complicated one, but it is a complicated order to achieve a simple result. The result is to abolish the Pay Board and restore free, collective bargaining in this country. It is true that the order itself looks much more complicated than that. It is just another example of how the Department of Employment works. It is a Department of few words but very good deeds, and it shows that some things are easier done than said.
We are, therefore, proposing to ask the House to approve it first of all on those grounds. One of the main objections I have always had to the system of the Pay Board and the whole method of the compulsory control of wages is that it takes many essential effective powers away from the House of Commons and away from Departments answerable to the House of Commons, and places those responsibilities in the hands of bureaucratic boards and bureaucratic bodies of one type or another. I have always opposed this operation particularly as it affects decisions about wages partly on those grounds as well as on other, general economic grounds. The experience of the last few months has certainly confirmed my view on that as well as other aspects of the matter.
But it would be ill mannered as well as churlish on my part if I did not pay tribute, despite my objection to the system, to the candour, wisdom and skill with which Sir Derek Figgures and Mr.

Derek Robinson and others on the Pay Board have conducted their tasks. Most of the difficulties have derived from the legislation and decisions of the previous Government. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend as Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Lewis) seems to disagree with me. My hon. Friend and I may have disagreements on certain matters, but I have seen the system from both ends, and it is the system that causes the difficulties.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: Under both Governments the Pay Board refused to take action at any time against well-paid company directors who persistently and regularly increased their pay by thousands of pounds a year.

Mr. Foot: No such cases were brought to my attention. My hon. Friend did not show his usual diligence in that matter.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: My right hon. Friend is wrong. If he asks his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition he will find that I took up this matter persistently with all Ministers and that they did nothing about it.

Mr. Foot: I accept my hon. Friend's criticism of everyone but myself. I hope I may proceed on that happy basis.
The Government recognise, and so do I, the seriousness of the economic situation, inflation and rising prices. Naturally enough, many newspapers have contained comments on the figures issued by the Department of Employment and published today concerning the rate of earnings increase, the rate of prices increase and the rate of incomes increase. It is natural that severe comment should be made upon those figures. The country as a whole should consider them seriously.

Mr. J. Bruce-Gardyne: The right hon. Gentleman seems to be leaving the order and going on to the general subject. Before he concludes his remarks, I hope that he will explain what is to happen in cases in which the Pay Board has already exercised its powers to issue restraint orders and companies are in a position of dispute on those orders. Companies need to know.

Mr. Foot: I agree that companies need to know, and my hon. Friend, if he wishes, will deal with such matters at the end of the debate. Some are dealt with in the order. I am not dealing with general subjects that are not directly related to the order. I am dealing with matters which are related to the order, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will allow me to proceed on that basis.
The background to these events is the general inflationary situation, and everyone is entitled to regard that with the utmost seriousness. The figures on which the headlines in The Times referring to the wages explosion are based have been available for a long time. Those figures were in the Department of Employment on the first day that I arrived there. I am sure that those figures were there when right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite vacated the Department of Employment and other Departments of State. I think that everyone understands that when the Government came to office they faced the most inflationary situation which any Government in this country have had to face—other countries have had to face it, too—and it is on that basis that the matter should be considered.

Mr. James Prior: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain to the House how the figures which appeared in The Times today could possibly have been available to the outgoing Government last February or March? The figures depend to a certain degree on the operation of the threshold agreements which in turn has depended on the movement of prices since, and, not least, on the effect of the Budget.

Mr. Foot: I am afraid that the right hon. Gentleman has not grasped the point. The forecasts in the Department were just as much available to the right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friends when they left office as they were to us when we came in. Those figures took into account the threshold agreement and the estimate of the number of times the threshold agreement would be triggered. In my first speech from the Dispatch Box on 18th March I said that those forecasts in the Department were just as much available to right hon. Gentlemen opposite as they were to me. Those forecasts were in even more alarmist terms than I have

said. As I said in my first speech as Secretary of State, those facts were in the Department, and I repeat that now so that the Opposition shall not conduct the debate under any misapprehension.

Mr. Tom Boardman: rose—

Mr. Foot: I have already given way several times. If I give way several more times my remarks are bound to take longer.

Mr. Tom Boardman: The right hon. Gentleman referred to the figures given in The Times this morning which showed weekly wage rates over the last two months rising at an annual rate of 42·6 per cent. Is he suggesting that those figures were known to the outgoing Government?

Mr. Foot: The figure of 15 per cent. increase in earnings this year, which is the figure on which The Times bases its estimates, includes the calculations for those two months, and those calculations were included in the forecasts.
The headlines seek to portray that the threshold agreement has suddenly come into operation and upset all the previous calculations. That is not so. The calculations were there on the first day I came into the Department. That gives a somewhat different perspective to the suggestion made in the newspapers about the state of our economic situation. I say this partly to dissipate the mood of panic which is sometimes spread by headlines. If there was a case for panic it was on the first day when the Government took office, and none of the events since has intensified—

Sir Harmar Nicholls: There is no room for complacency.

Mr. Foot: Of course there is no room for complacency. I said that at the beginning. The hon. Gentleman always takes about five minutes to catch up with what has been said.

Mr. Norman Atkinson: The week before last I suffered an increase in weight of 2½ lb. If that rate of increase continues, in a few years' time I shall weigh about 6½ tons.

Mr. Cyril Smith: The hon. Gentleman will have reached my level!

Mr. Atkinson: Based on The Times calculations, if I increase my rate by 2½ lb over that short period, I shall soon be in advance of the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith). Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the figures he saw when he came into the Department referred to a phase 3 price explosion of about 17 per cent. or 18 per cent. over the 12 months ending next November?

Mr. Foot: I confirm what my hon. Friend said. He quoted some other figures at Question Time about the reduction in the standard of life that was involved. I would not accept all the figures with which he fortified his argument, but agree with him on his general deduction.
When we came into office we saw the seriousness of the situation, but we were properly committed to the view—everything I have since seen has strengthened it—that one of the steps we must take to deal with the situation was to do away with the statutory controls which were so directly responsible for the smash-up that occurred last winter. That was not the only reason why we were opposed to those controls, because there were also other reasons. We set about seeking to remove the statutory controls, and we said at the beginning that we wished to make as smooth a transition as possible from compulsory controls to a voluntary system. That is what we have been seeking to do.
It is sometimes said in the newspapers that we had not applied our minds to the situation, as if we had suddenly been pushed into the position of having to come forward with proposals. But we carefully considered the best way to go about the matter and I believe that we adopted a wise approach to a difficult problem. One of the objections to a statutory system is that it is difficult to get rid of it. Indeed the moment one gets rid of it there is a danger of an explosion. That is why we approached the matter as we did.
First, we used much more flexibly than did the Conservatives the consent powers in the Counter-Inflation Act. It is not much of a boast to say that we used those powers more flexibly than the Tories did, because they did not use those

powers at all. We used them in the case of the miners' strike, which would never have been settled without them. We also used the consent powers in a number of other specific cases, partly on a basis of representations made by Members of Parliament, partly because of what was said by trade unions and employers and partly because of our own examination of the matter. We then came before the House and announced how we were using the consent powers.
We also took steps to see how we could ease the position of several groups of workers who had been most unjustly dealt with and discriminated against in the previous two or three years or longer. We sought to make arrangements for those groups to have special reviews back-dated to the time of the announcement—it will be remembered that two of those groups were the nurses and the teachers—or we made arrangements two or so months ago for special treatment to be given to some other groups, including postmen. It was right that we should take that course because the figures showed that just as the nurses and the teachers had suffered from discrimination, so also had the postmen. We sought to liberate them from the constraints of statutory control, and I am glad to say that a negotiated settlement was reached between the Post Office and the postmen.
There are some other groups which we had to take into account to deal with different situations. One group was the rail and London Transport workers. The Government have already recognised that a solution must be found to the exceptional pay problems of London Transport and British Rail—problems inherited from a period of statutory control. It was not possible to resolve those difficult issues while arbitration proceedings were going on. We could not interfere with the arbitration procedure; its having been agreed, we could not say that we would discount it or abandon it. It was not possible to resolve difficult issues while arbitration proceedings were taking place. As soon as those proceedings have been settled, however, the case will need to be considered as part of the Government's transition from statutory controls to the voluntary arrangements which I have outlined.
The Government can see no reason to prevent British Rail and its unions from


reaching agreement as soon as the statutory controls are lifted in the light of the arbitration on pay restructuring. Similarly, there will be no obstacles in the way of London Transport implementing its nine-point plan. London Transport has been one of the subjects with which the Minister for Transport and myself have been especially concerned. We have listened to the case put most strongly to us by both employers and unions. On that basis we believe that an early settlement can be reached, and I believe that it will greatly assist in dealing with this special aspect of the problem. I put that in the category of the cases which it was necessary for us to deal with before we reached the operation of a social contract, to which I shall come shortly, and the general understandings which feature in that contract.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: Is not the real meaning of what the Secretary of State is saying that the "big boys" get the cash and the little people, such as nurses, get promises?

Mr. Foot: No. The hon. Gentleman must not talk in that way because he might mislead people outside the House. We in this House know what value to place on his words, but somebody outside the House might take him seriously. The misrepresentation by the hon. Gentleman must be put right at once because it might cause misunderstandings outside. So far from its being the case that the Government have merely given promises to the teachers or the nurses, it was agreed at the time when we made the announcement of the review that it should be back-dated to the date of the announcement. Therefore, anybody who believed the hon. Gentleman would be misled. I hope that nobody will be misled.
It was surely a reasonable way for us to proceed, in preparing for the change-over from one system to the other, to seek to ensure as best we could that some of the cases which had to be dealt with most urgently—some involving groups of workers who had suffered severely because of the operation of statutory controls—should be dealt with before we came to the next period, to which I shall come in a moment.
We also made preparations in a different sense. We believed it necessary to have two institutions alongside the social contract which would assist us in carrying through the proper conduct of these affairs once we got to the voluntary system. Therefore we took steps to establish, as we said in our manifesto, a conciliation and arbitration service on which we have had consultation with the TUC and the CBI. That service will be managed and developed by an independent council, including representatives of the TUC and the CBI. It will provide conciliation and arbitration services which are freely and readily available both nationally and locally and it will seek to develop and improve effective bargaining machinery.
Both the TUC and the CBI have welcomed the creation of the service and have agreed to give it their full support. Arrangements for its establishment are well advanced and the Government aim to have it in full operation by 1st September, under the chairmanship of Mr. J. E. Mortimer, who is currently Industrial Relations Member of the London Transport Executive and a former official of the draughtsmen's union. We are grateful to Mr. Mortimer for taking on this task and I am sure he will approach it with enthusiasm. I believe that this institution will be able to make a growing contribution to industrial peace, and I hope the House will welcome that appointment and the establishment of a service which, I emphasise, has been welcomed by the TUC and the CBI.
Another institution which we are setting up, as also we have stated in our manifesto, is the Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth. The Royal Commission has a different rôle from that of the conciliation and arbitration service. The Government are determined to help to create a fairer society, and as a first step towards this we need to establish in a more thorough and comprehensive way than has been attempted hitherto the facts about the distribution of incomes and wealth of all kinds, earned and unearned. The Government envisage the Royal Commission ranging over the whole field, on the basis of references made to it by the Government, and producing reports of a factual


nature which will assist and inform policy-makers and those who are active in collective bargaining.
The commission is to be established as proposed in the consultative document issued on 10th June, with the following basic terms of reference:
To inquire into, and to report on, such matters concerning the distribution of personal incomes, both earned and unearned, and wealth as may be referred to it by the Government.
The chairman will be Lord Diamond, who will be giving up his position as Deputy Chairman of Committees in another place to take on this task. The commission will begin its work by the end of July, and it is intended that it shall have a standing reference to inquire into the distribution of personal incomes. The terms of this standing reference are published today in draft to enable those interested to comment upon them by the end of the month.
We propose to ask the commission to undertake an analysis of the current distribution of income and wealth and of available information on past trends in that distribution, and we say that we would welcome an initial report on this as early as possible during the first year of the commission's operation and subsequent reports from time to time. I am sure that the House will welcome the readiness of Lord Diamond to undertake this task. I hope people will understand that this commission will be covering a field which in many respects has not been covered at all before, or at any rate has not been covered in anything like the way it should have been.
Although I was not especially in need of support from other quarters, I was happy to see the statement made in The Times in an article by Mr. Paul Routledge, the excellent industrial correspondent of The Times, last Friday. He was not referring specifically to the Royal Commission, but these words have considerable social significance, and they are his words, not mine:
By comparison with the surgical dissection that academics have brought to bear on the condition of the poor, the well-off have been ignored. There have probably been no more than half a dozen serious research efforts in this field in the past decade. Perhaps it is not altogether surprising. The chief characteristic of wealth is reticence.

If I have done nothing else in the Department of Employment, if I can overcome the bashfulness of the rich I shall be satisfied. I am sure that the commission will assist in that respect, although of course it will cover a wider area than that.
One matter which I hope will be investigated very soon—I do not say that action should wait upon investigation—is one which hon. Members will have read about in the past few days, the report of the Low Pay Unit. In our belief it is a most important document. It is one which will be examined very carefully in the Department since it fits in with one of the essential paragraphs in the social contract document published by the TUC. So there is no conflict between the desire of the TUC to approach this matter and those who have prepared this valuable report of the Low Pay Unit.
I think that the Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth will provide the country with much fuller information on all the matters than we have had before. I believe that this institution can play an important part in helping us to deal with these problems.
Much the most important aspect of the preparations which the Government have made for the change-over from the previous system to the system which will prevail if the order is passed is the discussions that we have had with the TUC and the publication by the TUC of its statement on the social contract. That is a statement not devised by the Government. It is one which the TUC itself has put forward and which it believes to be in the interests of the trade unions themselves.
In that document the TUC has given guidance to negotiators about how they should approach wage settlements. That is one essential part of the document. Along with it there are many other aspects of the social contract statement to which I wish to draw the attention of the House and the country. There are its references to equal pay, to the low paid, to the restoration of collective bargaining generally and, of course, to the form in which negotiation should take place over the next 12 months. That is a matter of paramount importance in its document. But these other matters have also


to be taken along with it. I believe that the more people read the whole document, the more they will see that it is a constructive effort by the trade unions to approach the matter in the interests of trade unions but that it is also a document which takes full recognition of the national interest. It is in that spirit that this House should approach it.

Mr. Timothy Raison: Are the Government a party to the social contract?

Mr. Foot: If the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison) reads the document and the others which have been issued on the matter, I presume that he will understand it better. He will then be able to see how the document issued by the TUC on 26th June and the one it issued earlier on the 11th April are part of a continuing partnership between the Government and the trade unions carrying into practical action what we discussed before the General Election.
We had discussions before the General Election of what measures the Government would take to try to assist in the situation and what kind of measures the TUC would take in response to those measures. The document issued by the TUC on 26th June indicates how we have made progress in that direction and how we can make further progress over the coming months.
Right hon. and hon. Members may say that it will be difficult to carry out. Many excellent things in the world are difficult to carry out. But I hope that they will not deride the document. If they do, I hope that they will say how they expect to deal with our national affairs better by returning to the statutory system.

Mr. Churchill: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain why the Government have never issued a document giving their side of the understanding of the so-called social contract? In that respect, can the right hon. Gentleman also advise the House, if the TUC General Council statement on this matter represents Government policy, when the TUC took over issuing statements on behalf of the Government?

Mr. Foot: It is not the case that the statement by the TUC is a statement of Government policy. It is a statement of

attitudes to negotiations and other matters by the TUC which is greatly welcomed by this Government and which I believe would be greatly welcomed by any intelligent Government.
As for right hon. and hon. Members asking what is the Government's attitude to it, we have on a number of occasions said that we welcomed particularly parts of the statement and the whole atmosphere and spirit of it. We believe that it can play an essential part in the conduct of the economy of the country for years ahead. All that has been made quite plain. There is no mystery about it. If the hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Churchill) read fewer of the slogans and headlines perpetuated by his leaders, he might understand the position a little better.
Before I say any more about that, however, let me come to the Liberal Party. Hon. Members on the Liberal bench look a little neglected. I never like to neglect them. I am not sure whether the Liberal Party has abandoned its views about compulsory wage control. It has previously taken strong views on the subject. One of the things which have interested me at my Department has been representations received from different members of the Liberal Party on the question of statutory controls. They were perfectly entitled to raise individual matters with me, and they did so with their customary courtesy.
I shall quote one or two examples. I will not refer to cases of individual firms. That might in certain circumstances—not always—be invidious. I wish to give an indication of the feeling of hon. Members opposite on these matters, particularly the feeling among Liberal Members, whom I previously suspected of being in favour of maintenance of compulsory controls and who even supported the controls introduced by the previous Government in certain respects.
The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) wrote to me to put the case of one group of firms. He concluded his letter:
May I finish by saying that I realise it is quite absurd that you should be troubled by this sort of case but I am afraid it is the inevitable result of the extraordinary machinery devised by the last Government.
I am glad to welcome that view from the right hon. Gentleman. As he will know,


even prior to his representation we had in the Department taken special steps to give consent to another group of firms operating in the Shetlands. We came to the view that if we did not give those firms special consent for them to be able to escape the compulsory controls, the whole life of the Shetlands and the Orkneys might be strangled. We took action both by giving that consent and by drawing up our proposals which we are dealing with today to abolish the Pay Board. Once restrictions have been removed, the firm to which the right hon. Gentleman referred will be able to negotiate and we hope that by what we are proposing full assistance will be brought to his constituency.
If the Liberal Party, particularly the right hon. Gentleman, thought of voting against us in the Lobby—I am sure that such an evil thought has never crossed the right hon. Gentleman's mind—it would be the basest act of ingratitude since the afflictions King Lear had to suffer.

Mr. J. Grimond: The right hon. Gentleman has talked about important correspondence which I exchanged with him, but I hope he does not give the impression that I was ever in favour of the policy which he is now abolishing.

Mr. Foot: I am glad to have that assurance. If I am King Lear, the right hon. Gentleman has given a good impression of Cordelia. What about the Gonerils and Regans who are on that bench?
The hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) is a great champion of a compulsory wage policy. He wrote to me on behalf of the china clay workers of Cornwall. It is because of our policy, not his, that they are getting a wage increase. We had to have a special consent in their case as well.
The hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith) also wrote to me and said that we ought to abandon the pay controls in order to deal with the engineering dispute. We were able to deal with that without using that method.

Mr. Cyril Smith: I appear to be the only Member to whom the right hon. Gentleman has not extended the courtesy of saving that he would be referring to

me in the debate. My colleagues were informed this morning that he would be referring to them. Nevertheless I accept his apology in advance. I ask him to re-read the correspondence I sent to him regarding the engineers' dispute. He will find that I stated specifically that I was not expressing a personal opinion but was merely conveying to him the opinion of a man who employed 40,000 people in the engineering industry. If the right hon. Gentleman is to quote hon. Members in this way, it is important that he makes clear whether he is quoting their views or other people's views which Members have merely passed on to him.

Mr. Foot: I am sorry if I did not inform the hon. Gentleman that I would be referring to him. As I was looking along the Liberal bench I thought that he might be aggrieved if I left him out, so I brought him into the debate.
The hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. Steele) also wrote to me. He has a special case, like the hon. Member for Cornwall, North. He says that low wages are especially severe in his constituency. But the hon. Member for Cornwall, North He says that they are especially severe in his. The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson), who is not here at the moment, says that low wages are especially severe in his constituency. Therefore, I take it that the Liberals are in favour of compulsory wage control in all parts of the country, except in their constituencies.

Mr. David Steel: The right hon. Gentleman will want to be fair. If he re-reads my letters to him he will see that both of them contained the statement that was my party's view—a view which we put during the passage of the Counter-Inflation Act—that any statutory prices and incomes policy which was an effective means of achieving social justice must take account of the different levels of wages in different parts of the country. We criticised the policy of the previous Government because it failed to try to raise the level of wages in low-paid areas. We have supported that objective and still support it under the present Government

Mr. Foot: I am glad that I have the whole Liberal Party united, although I am not sure about the hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew). He


joined the Liberal Party on the misinformation that that party was still in favour of compulsory wage controls. Perhaps he had better cross the Floor again before he discovers his mistake.

Mr. John Pardoe: Since the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned King Lear, Cordelia and the rest, it would be appropriate to say that he is in danger of playing the fool. He may be aware that when the Counter-Inflation Bill was being considered I sought to move two amendments, one specifically to exempt persons with low incomes and the other specifically to exempt persons working in development areas. Therefore, he is more right than he knows when he says that I was exempting my own constituency. I still believe in statutory pay control—though not the sort which the right hon. Gentleman is now abolishing—and so will he when next June wages are rising by 40 per cent. and there is no other answer than to allow unemployment to rise to 2 million.

Mr. Foot: We do not accept the solutions suggested by the hon. Gentleman, but we do not have to quarrel on such a happy occasion because the Liberal Party is not apparently going to vote against the order.
I turn now to the official Opposition. A few months ago they insisted on the maintenance of legal backing for a wages policy. They put down a motion about that for the debate on the Queen's Speech. What is the attitude of the Opposition? They have made charges against the Government generally and against me in particular. They have said that our policy, the social contract and the rest is merely a policy of giving in to the unions. That is the charge they make. No one makes it more frequently than the Leader of the Opposition. He generally makes it at Conservative women's fetes, which is not exactly the place where he might expect to be challenged. Perhaps his audiences at the fetes have not studied the question in detail.
The right hon. Gentleman says that we have given in to the unions. Let us just see. He has frequently said it outside the House, and I dare say that some of his colleagues are still trying to say it. Let us see what is the basis for this case.

The Leader of the Opposition started by saying that we had given in to the miners. He repeated that accusation in the country the other day. He said that we gave the miners all they wanted and then some, and he said that the strike had been settled by a blank cheque. That is quite untrue. The Conservatives would know that it is untrue if they would only consult the people who engaged in the negotiations—the people at the National Coal Board. They do not have to take it from the miners, although the miners happen to know what goes on and the Leader of the Opposition and his colleagues do not. The Miners' strike was settled by a sensible and fair negotiation not by a surrender.
Let me take another major case. These are not trivial examples; after all, the miners' strike was a big affair. Take engineers. Is that a major case or not? Did we surrender to the unions in the case of the engineers? That is the general charge, remember—that we are giving in to the unions all the time. Do the Opposition say that there was any surrender by one side or the other in the engineering dispute? Nothing of the sort occurred. There again, there was a sensible negotiation between two sides. The engineering employers do not say that the unions surrendered, nor have the unions said that the employers surrendered. They came to a sensible agreement after sensible negotiations.
Yet we hear all these wild tales of how the Government have surrendered. What the Government have done and what we are doing even more with this order is to prepare the way for sensible collective bargaining. We believe that that is much the best way to try to avoid both the dangers of mass unemployment and the dangers of confrontation and smash-up which we had under the statutory policy and the policies of the Conservative Party.
When the Leader of the Opposition parades around the country talking of industrial relations solely in terms of surrender, capitulation and battles, we know that that is what he wants—or that that is where he would land us. That is what he thinks industrial relations are about. We say that they are about something quite different. They are about conciliation, about restoring the authority of some


forms of arbitration and about trying to get away from talk of surrender, particularly when, as in the case of the two strongest unions in the country—the miners and the engineers—there was no question of surrender. No one who knows anything about those negotiations could make that charge and sustain it.
I do not suppose that the Leader of the Opposition has much influence in the country now, but when he goes about saying that it is all a battle and that there has been a surrender he is putting us back to those old terms. That is where the Conservative Party would take us back if we let it do so. We should soon be back in the days of February and the bleakness of last winter if we allowed that to go on. We should soon be back in the situation that we remember, the days of Lancaster House and confrontations, with people marching in and out of Downing Street saying "The clash is coming," back to the three-day week and threats of that nature. Then, as the country waited with bated breath, no doubt the Conservatives would call sudden meetings to decide what to do and the answer we would hear would be that they had called in Lord Carrington and had been fools enough to take his advice. That is what would happen again under their methods of dealing with these problems.
We are trying to find a different way of doing it. We do not say that there is any simple course. We do not say that there is any single way of dealing with inflation. But we do say that it has to be approached by a whole series of different methods. We say that this return to collective bargaining is one part of it, that the establishment of a conciliation and arbitration service is another part, that proper communication with and information from the Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth will be another part and that the policies which the Government follow in their approaches to rents and the rest are still another part. These are the ways in which we can try to tackle the problem.
We think that that is much better than the talk of coalitions. The last time this country saw a coalition in peace time, in 1931, we had the worst Government that we have known this century. That was how we got a coalition policy and, although they did not devise statutory means of doing it then, it was a policy

very much based on the real plank which apparently binds the Opposition coalition parties together now—unless we have sundered them this afternoon. That is the policy of which an essential part is the compulsory and rigid control of wages.
I say that that policy has collapsed. It collapsed in February and we as a Government say that we will not return to that policy. That is why we have said not merely that we will carry through the order but that we will not return to a freeze, we will not return to the compulsory control of wages. We have given that undertaking.
When hon. Members are making up their minds about how to vote tonight—if they vote against the order they will be voting for the maintenance of compulsory controls of that nature—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—yes, they will—perhaps they had better consult their CBI friends to see what they think. In all our discussions with the CBI, they did not dare to suggest that we could possibly continue with the compulsory control of wages, particularly in the bureaucratic and anti-parliamentary form in which it was devised by the Conservative Party.
Therefore, what this House does today, despite all the difficulties, despite all the problems that the nation faces, is an essential part of ensuring that the social contract shall have a chance to succeed. The abolition of compulsory controls on wages is an essential part of the social contract and tonight we shall see either whether the Opposition have abandoned the policies which led to such a collapse in February or whether they are determined to persist in that course. These are some of the issues on which the election will be fought.

5.38 p.m.

Mr. James Prior: The Secretary of State for Employment began his speech on a serious note and I thought that we might hear from him a speech in which he really dealt with the serious issues that we have to face. I find the right hon. Gentleman an engaging man. He still makes exactly the same speeches from the Dispatch Box as he used to make when he sat below the Gangway.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: No U-turns.

Mr. Prior: The difficulty about the right hon. Gentleman is that he forgets that he is now a Minister and that he


has a responsibility which he is not carrying out. I wish that he would spend a little less time trying to decide how he is to share out the money which the rich supposedly have left and perhaps a little more time describing how our economy and our society can create more wealth. That is the only way in which we shall overcome our problems. When he makes snide remarks and cheap asides about that section of society that is creating all the wealth, he would do well to remember that the top rate of tax introduced by his Government on investment income is now 98 per cent.

Mr. William Hamilton: Poor things.

Mr. Prior: The right hon. Gentleman began his speech on the basis of the serious situation the country faces. We have had another reminder this afternoon of the way in which unemployment is starting to rise. We know the situation of inflation, and now this is being added to by higher unemployment. It is therefore right that the House should adopt a sober mood in discussing the issues before us today.
The order before the House is designed to do two things. First, it abolishes the Pay Board. Second, it abolishes the power provided by the Counter-Inflation Act 1973 to create a Pay Board. Along with this power there falls the power also to devise a code for the guidance of the Pay Board and for the practical guidance of those concerned in decisions about pay, and the power to make general references to the Pay Board on questions of remuneration.
This order is a wholly negative piece of legislation. It is negative not merely in the sense that it abolishes existing machinery without putting anything new or better in its place, but negative also in the deeper sense that it sets this country a good deal back while on its journey towards a fair and rational way of dealing with the problem of inflation.
As the right hon. Gentleman spent so much time discussing nurses and teachers he might for a moment have borne in mind that the real problem about the pay of nurses, teachers and many other sections of society that have fallen behind in recent years—not just in the lifetime of the previous Government but Govern-

ments prior to them—arose because of the power of some people and some sections of society to get out of the economy, by certain means, wages which other sections were not able to get out of it because they were not prepared to take the sort of action that others took.
Looking back on the whole period since the war we can see the problems the nation has had in devising a system which maintained full employment and yet, at the same time, did not give rise to high rates of inflation. We can go back even to the 1944 White Paper on employment policy, which stated:
Action taken by Government to maintain expenditure will be fruitless unless wages and prices are kept reasonably stable. This is of vital importance to any employment policy, and must be clearly understood by all sections of the public. If we are to operate with success a policy for maintaining a high and stable level of employment, it will be essential that employers and workers should exercise moderation in wage matters so that increased expenditure … may go to increase the volume of employment.
Before the war we had 2 million or 3 million unemployed and reasonably steady prices. Since the war we have had full employment but a degree of inflation. In terms of human happiness, dignity and social progress, the decision we have made as a country since the war has been right. But inflation has now become an avalanche. It is worse here than in most other countries.

Mr. E. Fernyhough: I wonder how the argument that the right hon. Gentleman is presenting to the House applies in respect of Italy. Italy has had the unemployment and, likewise, the inflation.

Mr. Prior: But Italy also, until recently, had a far higher rate of growth in her economy than we did, and Italy had no more inflation than we had. I do not think that the experience of Italy in any way changes one iota what has happened and what I have been describing.
We are now in danger of the worst of both worlds. We are in danger of having very high inflation and recession leading to high unemployment at the same time. To reflate in such circumstances can itself lead to further unemployment. High inflation: high unemployment. That is a recipe which the


right hon. Gentleman did not deal with at all in his speech. It is a recipe for authoritarian government and controls and loss of freedom such as we should all detest. The public have not yet understood that, although they suspect that much is wrong. We in this House have a duty to point it out. It was a great pity that the right hon. Gentleman did not delve a bit deeper in his speech to point out some of the dangers which the nation faces if it continues on its present course.
The whole post-war period has seen a set of variations on the theme of the twin pressures of full employment and of demand inflation on the economy. During this period there have been many shifts of emphasis in Government policy as between the various objectives of growth, price stability, full employment, the maintenance of the exchange rate and the maintenance of a satisfactory balance of payments. A great variety of expedients has been tried.
In respect of incomes policy there is no need for me to go over again the long story of wage restraint, guiding lights, norms and gateways. These are all familiar to us, and we shall always return to them because their story reflects the inescapable fact that, as a nation we simply cannot pay ourselves more than we earn; that as a nation we are obliged to find a way of balancing our incomes with our earnings, or we face dire consequences. The country must be brought to recognise this fact.
I think that we in the House, for the most part, do recognise this fact. While we may each give a different weight to each of the various factors which give rise to inflation, we all agree that the rate of growth of incomes is a factor of primary importance. The Prime Minister once described, in a well-known epigram, one man's pay rise as another man's price rise. I think that we also know today that one man's pay rise may be another man's job.
We all have the same objectives: full employment and growth without inflation. We share the same analysis: that we cannot sustain growth and full employment or avoid inflation unless we can find a way as a nation of limiting the growth of incomes to what we can afford.

The only thing that is lacking is agreement on the methods and instruments by which those shared objectives are to be pursued and that common analysis implemented.
We should much prefer, for many reasons, a voluntary system. It keeps the Government out of it. It avoids distortions. It is true to the spirit and philosophy of the Conservative Party. I tell the right hon. Gentleman that we got no joy in those last two years of having people in and out of No. 10 and the Departments of Whitehall. We should much have preferred to try to do it another way. In an ideal world the voluntary system is the only possible course one would adopt. But it requires a balance of power within the bargaining process which has not been noticeably present in recent years. We talk about free collective bargaining, but how free is it, and how much of a bargain is it nowadays with the monopoly power of trade unions?

Hon. Members: Nonsense.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: And company directors.

Mr. Prior: It is all very well for hon. Members to say "Nonsense ", but the whole country knows the power that certain unions are able to exercise. Anyone in government knows it. One does not have to be in government more than five minutes to know it—or if one is in government and does not know it, one ought not to be in government. There is wide agreement in the country as a whole for this view. Many people would rather have some form of incomes control than a significant rise in unemployment.
As one looks back on the history of inflation and incomes policy one finds that there has also been a wide divergency and discontinuity in the policies and institutions we have adopted as controls. I have always thought that the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Jenkins) was right in his 1969 Budget, because at that time he suggested that what we needed to do was to abolish incomes policy and accept instead some reform of industrial relations which could be substituted for it. That was the whole basis in 1969 of getting rid of incomes control and having the "In Place of Strife" legislation.
We pursued that view in 1970. We thought that was right and was the best way to do it. It would have left free collective bargaining, but within a framework of law which trade unions would have to follow. I still believe that that would have provided the country with by far the best answer. That was one of the reasons why we were convinced that the right thing to do was to get rid of the National Board for Prices and Incomes. But I do not believe that we can go on changing institutions and bodies every time there is a change of Government. It is that which is doing so much harm to confidence in our economy.
We have heard from the Secretary of State today that we are now to have the CAS under Mr. Mortimer, whom we wish well, and the Royal Commission on incomes distribution under Lord Diamond. We are to have another two bodies that will do very much what the Pay Board in one form or another could have done and could even do now, and what the Prices and Incomes Board before that could have done. There is no points in this constant switching and changing of our institutions. The British are creatures of habit, and it would be better for them to become used to one institution. We could change its rules a bit and even change its members.
I do not suppose that anyone on my side of the House would particularly want to see the Pay Board with Sir Frank Figgures and Mr. Derek Robinson still there. That is a matter about which there would be some divergence of view. My own view is that in many respects the Pay Board did extremely good work. It has built up a certain expertise, and it is a mistake to get rid of it. The board could live with a voluntary policy. When my right hon. Friend designed the Counter-Inflation Act he did it in such a way that the board could operate within a voluntary policy. I believe that to be by far the best way.

Mr. Foot: I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not compare the two institutions he mentioned with the Pay Board. Whatever may be the virtues of one or the other, the Pay Board was backed with sanctions and even the criminal law. It could operate without reference to Parliament. It was a quite different kind of institution from either

of the bodies we are seeking to establish, neither of which challenges the power of Parliament and neither of which is equipped with the threat of legal and criminal sanctions.

Mr. Prior: The right hon. Gentleman does not know. There is no reason why the Pay Board should not be continued in existence as an independent body monitoring the progress of the social compact and expanding its advisory function under Schedule 1 to the Counter-Inflation Act. For example, it would be possible, if we wanted it to do so, for the board to monitor the progress of the social compact. That might be a rather satisfactory job. I have a great deal more reliance on the board's monitoring it than the right hon. Gentleman's doing so.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: It may be of consequence to mention that the last occasion when we experienced an appreciable deceleration in the rate of increase in unit labour costs, from 11 per cent. to just over 6 per cent., between 1971 and 1972, came at the end of a period of three years when we had not had any such institutions.

Mr. Prior: My hon. Friend must also recognise that by the summer of 1972 the situation had drastically changed. By August-September 1972 wages were rising at a rate of 16 per cent. year on year, and unit costs were not falling to anything like the extent to which they had fallen in the earlier period. When I think back to a time when wages were rising at 16 per cent. a year, remembering how serious we thought that was and comparing it with the way in which wages are rising now, I am even more dismayed by the Government's attitude.
I believe that no one will pretend that as a system of incomes restraint the social compact is so sure of success that we need not bother to think about alternative or additional approaches to dealing with the problem of inflation. We all hope that the social compact will succeed, but we must all have very much in mind the possibility of its failing and the consequent development of the runaway inflation of which the Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke at Durham last month.
Before I come to that speech, I should like to say to the TUC that I hope it will


do its best to apply to the non-conformers with the social compact sanctions as tough as it did to those unions which chose to register under the Industrial Relations Act. I shall regard that as an indication of not only its desire but its determination to make the social compact work.
The Chancellor said at Durham:
There are at least some signs that the price of our imported raw materials may level off in the months ahead. So what happens to wages is the key to controlling inflation in the coming year.
The right hon. Gentleman said that on 1st June. Two days later Mr. David Basnett, General Secretary of the General and Municipal Workers' Union, remarked that if the Government were saying that wage costs were the major cause of inflation, they were not saying that during the election. We all remember that.
I come to the seriousness of the situation. Here I should like to quote from a leading article in The Times this morning headed "The Wages Explosion". It says:
It was firmly implied that the return of a Labour government, committed to such a compact, would cause organised labour to reduce its wage demands during 1974 and beyond. Cynics and economic forecasters were, for the most part, prepared to count very little for credit from this policy. And they are rapidly being proved right. We are now already in a phase where rises in wage costs are taking over from rises in the price of oil and other imported commodities as the main engine of inflation.
The Economist has said:
Other wage claims and post-stage-three settlements are soaring far beyond reason. British Rail, the Post Office and London Transport have already conceded wage increases of about 30 per cent. for the autumn. In private industry, electrical contractors are to get 40 per cent., oil tanker drivers between 25 per cent. and 30 per cent., and Imperial Chemical Industries has offered its workers between 19 per cent. and 27 per cent. If pay controls are abandoned before the election there will be an avalanche of increases".
That is a quotation from the Economist.

Mr. Foot: I know that it is a quotation from the Economist. That does not sustain its validity. First, I do not accept all those figures. Secondly, some of the settlements that have been lumped together should be separated, for the reasons I have given before. They are separated in the understanding of the TUC and the social contract, for the reasons I gave—particularly the British Rail and Post Office settlements.

Mr. Prior: That does not add up in economic terms. The right hon. Gentleman is saying, in other words, that the social compact begins when one wants it to begin, but not until then. Therefore, people can have a big increase before it begins, and that does not count. It may make some political sense to the right hon. Gentleman but it does not make economic sense to the rest of the country.

Mr. Foot: Perhaps the right 'Ion. Gentleman should think it over a bit more carefully. His leader chose to pretend that the Conservative Government had a system for selecting some of the people who should be allowed to catch up because they had fallen so far behind. What we have done is to allow the nurses, the teachers, the postmen and the railway-men to have increases on that basis. Is the right hon. Gentleman in favour of the nurses having their review or not?

Mr. Prior: That is not the point. The chemical workers, Shell tanker drivers and almost everyone else in the economy are getting such increases. The right hon. Gentleman knows that the matter is not confined to the nurses or the teachers. It goes much wider than that. He should face the facts of life. There are two sides to the social compact—

Mr. Atkinson: We must start trying to understand some of the things that are now happening to wage movements. The Times does not help when it refers to percentages. A percentage itself is irrelevant in economic terms. If we talk about 20 per cent. or 30 per cent. of nothing, that will not have much impact on the economy or the level of demand. If we talk about a board of directors which receives enormous remuneration and whose members receive a 20 per cent. increase, that obviously will raise the level of demand considerably. The use of arithmetical sums of that kind in terms of percentages is valid only when wages are compared with prices. If the right hon. Gentleman wants to talk about the level of demand, which has decreased in the third period of the previous Government's wages policy, he should talk about the total sums involved and not the percentages.

Mr. Prior: The trouble with the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) is that he is trying to put his head in the sand so as not to recognise what is going


on. Some of the people in his union whom he supports are those who will suffer enormously over the coming months as a result of the high rate of inflation, which might be said to be an induced rate, for which many Labour Members must take some responsibility.
There are two sides to the social compact—namely, that of the Government and that of the trade unions. The retention of the Pay Board and the Government's powers over incomes under the Counter-Inflation Act bears on the position of both parties. As long as there is any doubt about the social compact achieving the purpose for which it was designed, the Government cannot be justified in casting aside their existing reserve powers. Just as when all efforts to achieve a voluntary policy broke down in the autumn of 1972 it was right to introduce a statutory policy, so now, when the Government believe that a voluntary policy may have a chance of success—that is a belief which is shared by the TUC and parts of the CBI—it may well be right to put the statutory powers on the back burner. I believe that to discard them entirely must be a great mistake.
When the right hon. Gentleman and his party came to office—he mentioned this today—he told us that certain figures were available to them. He talked about figures but in fact they were estimates which have since changed considerably. They have changed partly as a result of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Budget and partly as a result of the much laxer policy that the right hon. Gentleman has adopted towards wage settlements.
I would be the first to admit that the situation was serious. The first thing that happened was that the miners broke through the pay policy. The Government settled with them on any terms. The right hon. Gentleman has said "We just sent the National Coal Board and the NUM away to settle and they made an agreement amongst themselves." Does anyone believe that the miners did not get everything that they wanted as a result of that approach? The right hon. Gentleman is a simpleton—I do not really think that he is—if he believes that the National Union of Mineworkers did not get what it wanted.

Mr. Foot: What the right hon. Gentleman is saying on that subject is absolutely

false. Before he makes such a statement he should check with the National Coal Board if he will not believe the miners. The right hon. Gentleman should find out the facts and then come back and apologise.

Mr. Prior: I am prepared to find out the facts, but I think that they will entirely support what I have said. The right hon. Gentleman has a charming and disarming way of settling disputes. It is consistent with the following approach—"Go away and settle. Do not worry me about the cost or the effect on the economy, just settle. We will pick up the bills later, preferably after the General Election."

Mr. Foot: I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman does any good by trying to deal with these matters by adopting this sort of distortion. That is not what happened in the mining dispute. It is not what happened in the engineering dispute, and it is not what happened in the London weighting issue. Before he utters such ignorant lies he should find out the facts.

Mr. Prior: That is exactly what happened on the London weighting issue. The right hon. Gentleman produces a policy and then backs away from it. It is plain that he has done so. His Department is no longer one which is meant to exercise some control over these matters. The right hon. Gentleman is actually pushing for higher wages—

Mr. Foot: Absolutely false.

Mr. Prior: The economy will suffer. The right hon. Gentleman should take these matters much more seriously. My right hon. and hon. Friends take it seriously.

Mr. John Peyton: I am much impressed by the gravity with which my right hon. Friend approaches the state of the economy. His approach impresses me more than that of the Secretary of State, who gives the impression that all he can give to our problems is merely a passing glance. However, I must ask my right hon. Friend what he is actually asking us to support tonight.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: Another U-turn.

Mr. Peyton: Is my right hon. Friend asking us to support his opposition to the


abolition of the Pay Board or his insistence on some effective action being taken to stem the tide? I for one am not anxious to support the retention of the Pay Board.

Mr. Prior: I know that my right hon. Friend is not anxious to support its retention. What I am saying is that in the present serious situation it is necessary to have available for use, should it be necessary, every weapon that can be obtained from the armoury.
The present situation is that there is now a complete free-for-all. We know the rate at which wages are increasing. Nothing is being set up; nothing is being left on the statute book which will give the Government any reserve powers to introduce a statutory policy. All our experience when in government was that if we did not possess such reserve powers there were two alternatives. The first was to struggle on without any form of statutory policy. If we took that course we might be having wage increases of 20 per cent., 25 per cent. and 30 per cent. by the autumn.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: Why wages all the time?

Mr. Prior: The other alternative was to have a freeze. That is the only thing that can be operated quickly. What I want the Government to do, and what I think is wise from the point of view of our party when it comes into government, is to have statutory powers in reserve. I do not want to use them. It would be much better if we could get through without using them. There is a grave danger in allowing them all to go. It would be much more sensible to keep them in reserve and bring them out only if necessary.
There are many difficulties ahead of the nation which will require a great deal of effort to solve. If we can find a solution through the social compact and not by coercion, so much the better. Perhaps we can do it partly by controlling demand. I have never thought that the money supply could be the sole method of control but I think that it has an important part to play in the present situation. At the rate at which inflation is now running it has an even bigger part to play, but I do not think that we can rely on it alone. I feel that those who

take the view, which I do not entirely share, that control can be applied through the money supply alone would find that, like all other panaceas, it would soon prove to be socially unjust and too crude a method. One result would be that the level of unemployment would become unacceptable. Of course, for every 1 per cent. increase in wages that we cannot afford we are bound to add to the number of unemployed which we shall have to endure. I believe that we need the whole armoury and that we cannot afford to get rid of any of our weapons. Perhaps we can put some of them in oil, but they should be available to use at any time.
By seeking to abolish the Pay Board and the power to operate an incomes policy, the Government are stripping themselves of any alternative to deflation or a freeze. They have left themselves bare of any alternative. It is an act of massive irrelevance, at this time of all, with what we know is ahead of us, for the nation not to have these extra powers.
The Secretary of State has been a great disciple of Aneurin Bevan. Let him remember that famous Labour Party conference speech when Aneurin Bevan derided and scattered the unilateral disarmers. Mr. Bevan would not go naked to his conference table. Neither should the Secretary of State go naked to his. He should resist the demands of the TUC on this issue. Let him act as one of Her Majesty's Ministers for a change. The situation demands, and the nation expects, it.

6.11 p.m.

Mr. E. Fernyhough: The right hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior) has made very grave charges against some of the most responsible men in the country. He is really saying that the leaders of the TUC are trying to mislead the country, that they are not true and honest and sincere in what they are saying about the social contract. He is trying to convey the impression that all the difficulties, all the problems and all the anxieties about inflation that we have are solely due to the wicked, greedy, avaricious trade unionists.
The right hon. Gentleman represents the farmers. I have never known him to be backward when farming interests are


at stake. Among hon. Members opposite there is a powerful lobby for the NFU. Week in and week out, they ask for more for the farmers. When the farmers get more, does not that add to inflation? Are we to believe that the farmers can get more without its adding to inflation but that the miners cannot?
The right hon. Gentleman has forgotten the experience of the nation in the first three months of this year. Had the Conservative Government remained in power the situation today would have been catastropic. They would have preferred to have kept the miners out—and every day longer the miners were kept out the deeper would our economic problems have become. It is quite remarkable how ready the Conservative Government were to pay the oil sheikhs what they demanded.

Mr. Cyril Smith: What would the right hon. Gentleman have done?

Mr. Fernyhough: I should have paid them, but I was also prepared to give the miners a living wage.

Mr. F. A. Burden: I am trying carefully to follow the hon. Gentleman and I have expressed sympathy with the miners. If the miners now came out with a demand of a similar character and a threat to take action if it were not met, would the hon. Gentleman meet that claim, whatever it might be?

Mr. Fernyhough: I do not believe that the hon. Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden) cannot read. He must have read the decision of this year's miners' conference. They have said that there will be no conflict and no confrontation.

Mr. Burden: Answer the question.

Mr. Fernyhough: I have answered it. The hon. Gentleman has asked me to deal with a hypothetical situation. The men who could create that hypothetical situation have said that they are not going to do it, but the hon. Gentleman does not believe them. The vast majority of the delegates at the conference said that they would not create such a situation. The union is a democratic organisation and the miners will abide by that decision. The hon. Gentleman should not give grist to the mill of the minority who would like to do it. He

should be helping those who are reasonable and sensible.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: I think that my right hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough) will appreciate—

Mr. Burden: He is not right hon.

Mr. Skinner: He is right hon. How long has the hon. Member been here?

Mr. Burden: Longer than the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner).

Mr. Skinner: And the hon. Gentleman has made more mistakes. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow talks about the minority in the NUM who might wish to have a conflict, perhaps he will reflect on his words, because I know that he will agree with me that a conflict can only be caused by two sides. It could be argued usefully and properly that the conflicts in 1972 and 1974 were not caused by the majority or by the minority in the NUM but by the other side. If there is no conflict this autumn I am sure my right hon. Friend will agree that it will not be as a result of a majority or a minority in the NUM but because of the different climate which could well have been contributed to by the present Government.

Mr. Fernyhough: I think that is true. My right hon. Friends said to the men in charge of the nationalised coal industry "It is your job to run it and we will give you a bit of flexibility to do so." Under the Conservative Government the National Coal Board's hands were tied despite the fact that coal had become more important than ever to the economic life of the country. The Conservatives were prepared to see the economic situation become catastrophic rather than eat a little humble pie. It is obvious that we are in a changed situation in which our coal is ever more important.
The right hon. Member for Lowestoft referred to the producers of wealth. Are there any people who are greater producers of real wealth than the miners? It is the trade unionists, the men in the factories, in the pits and in the fields, who are the real producers of the wealth of Great Britain. If the Stock Exchange closed tomorrow Great Britain would not basically be affected, but as long as the farmers and the farm workers, the miners


and the men in the factories and in the docks go to work the nation's wealth is created. As long as they were at work and creating wealth it would not really matter if all the banks were bombed out. The idea that the men who do the basic work of the country are not its producers of wealth makes me sick.
Now, we live in a different age. The men who have done the hard, dirty and dangerous work of society know now that for generations they did not get a fair reward. They are no longer going to be pushed around.

Mr. Burden: rose—

Mr. Fernyhough: No. I have given way several times.
Our workers, whether they be miners, engineers, shipbuilders or anyone else, cannot be treated as they were in the past. They have arrived. Unless we recognise that basic fact we cannot begin to deal with the problems with which the nation has to contend. Unless we recognise that, we cannot get the understanding from them which is essential to this nation's future well-being. They are basic pillars. Try to knock them about and the whole edifice will collapse. Give them the remuneration to which their contribution to society entitles them and they will co-operate in getting us through the problems we face.
I do not believe that the dangers we are facing, the problems we are trying to tackle, can be tackled adequately on the basis of confrontation. We can only deal with them by sitting round the table and getting sensible and reasonable men to reach sensible decisions. We could not do that under that legislation we seek now to remove. It was the barrier that prevented such action. It is the new kind of conciliation machinery, which my right hon. Friend is trying to establish, which will prove to be a much sounder alternative in the new climate everyone is trying to create.
There will be two sides to industry for longer than my lifetime. In that event the easier we can make the pathway to conciliation the better it will be for employers and employees. If it is easier for them, then in the long term it will be better for the nation. That is why in taking his followers into the Lobby tonight in an attempt to maintain legislation which has completely failed in its purpose

the right hon. Member for Lowestoft is not doing the nation a service.
The right hon. Member referred to the figures my right hon. Friend said were awaiting him. Does he question that during the General Election he and others in his party said that the deficit in the nationalised industries totalled about £500 million? Does he accept that when my right hon. Friends got to their respective desks in Government they found that far from its being £500 million it was approximately £1,400 million? Does he further accept that if that were to be passed into the economy it would he bound to affect the cost of living and to be highly inflationary? The Conservative Government knew about this before they left office. They did not tell the public. It was found out because there was a change of Government. Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that charges for electricity, and coal and rail fares would not have increased by more than £500 million?

Mr. Prior: I think we should get this clear. My right hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Barber) announced before Christmas that it would be necessary to increase the nationalised industry charges. The deficit was never struck at £500 million. The right hon. Gentleman has got two sets of figures mixed up. At that time we were subsidising the nationalised industries to the tune of £500 million. I do not believe we could have gone on indefinitely subsidising those industries. It is a bad policy.

Mr. Fernyhough: It may be a bad policy, but if the right hon. Gentleman were to take away the subsidy from London Transport, London would come to a halt. We cannot run a transport system on the basis of insisting that every single unit and yard should pay its way. It would be well-nigh impossible for us to operate any public transport system without a subsidy.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: The right hon. Gentleman corrected my right hon. Friend's figures. Is my right hon. Friend aware that we subsidise to the extent of thousands of millions of pounds the Army, Navy and Air Force because we pay for them out of taxation? We do so because we think it is necessary for the good of the country. No one objects to that. If we think it is for the good


of the country to have a service is it not a good idea to pay for it?

Mr. Fernyhough: My hon. Friend has in some respects tried to reinforce the much smaller argument I was making, that we could not possibly have a public transport system working on the basis that every single yard of the service operated in a viable fashion.
It is rather tragic that Conservative Members have learned nothing from the experiences of these past 18 months. They still believe that in the middle 1970s it is possible to deal with trade unions almost as they were dealt with when the Combination Acts were introduced. The trade unions must not only be recognised and consulted. In the end it is with them that we must settled. The Conservative Party prefers confrontation, a settlement like 1926, starving the men back.
Our policy for settlement is by sitting round the table. I warn right hon. and hon. Gentlemen that if the country has to make a choice it will support those who stand for conciliation rather than those who seek confrontation.

6.25 p.m.

Mr. Maurice Macmillan: I must apologise to the House and the Minister concerned because I shall have to miss most of the Government's reply because of a long-standing engagement. No doubt I shall be able to read the proceedings in HANSARD, in due course. I am not sure when.
Normally in these circumstances I would not seek to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I do so now only because I am in some sense the political midwife of this 16-month-old infant Pay Board which the Secretary of State is seeking to murder in this order. I hope that the House will prevent him from doing so.
We are not, as the right hon. Gentleman suggested, discussing the merits or demerits of a statutory pay policy. We are discussing the existence of this organisation and Part I of the Act. Voting against this order is in no way to vote in favour of a statutory policy. Nor do I think it expresses in any way a view damaging to or implying distrust of the social contract. I hope that the House will reject this order because, whatever

the Secretary of State may say and whatever he may think he is doing, the result of this action would be to foster in 1974–75 the same sort of inflationary pressures as the previous Labour Government created in 1970–71 by their pre-election abandonment of any form of income policy.
I quite understand the Secretary of State's wish to drop a statutory policy and at this stage to do away with a separate Pay Board and Pay Code. But he is doing a lot more than that. He is limiting the possible future action of any Government by permanently destroying what could remain as a valuable and useful piece of machinery. It is useful for any pay or prices and incomes policy, not only statutory, not only formal and voluntary but even for the sort of policy which is being operated only through collective bargaining conducted on the lines laid down by the unions which, as I understand it, is the Government's present policy.
The Secretary of State referred to the new conciliation and arbitration services. I welcome them. However, I do not think that they fill the rôle that the Pay Board could fulfil. They will no doubt be valuable, but their effectiveness on pay is likely to be distorted by the power of some unions compared with others. That view has been put to me at various meetinsg by union leaders.
Even were that not so, I think that a board of this kind, in relation to the level of pay as opposed to the settlement of disputes, is a syndicalist type of organisation and even less responsible to this House than any type of hoard or agency that we have had before.
I have some sympathy with what the Secretary of State is trying to do about stopping a separate Pay Board and Pay Code and abandoning a statutory policy as of now. However, I do not have much sympathy with his choice of method. He could have achieved his objective under the 1973 Act. Section 1 allows him to amalgamate the agencies or to amend the Act in any way that he likes by order. In Section 2 "Treasury"—a word the right hon. Gentleman appears to dislike—could be amended to any other Department or, indeed, to the Agencies themselves. Under subsection (2) the word "may" allows him to exclude the Pay


Code altogether if he chooses to amalgamate the agencies. He can, in effect, achieve a single agency, without going to these lengths, dealing effectively only with prices. All that is possible under existing legislation.
I do not believe that the right hon. Gentleman would be right to do that. But, if he were to do that, he would, in effect, be saying that the Government are seeking to control inflation through their tax and monetary policies only, plus direct control of dividends, profit margins and prices. If that is the Government's policy, I do not believe that it will be possible to bring the degree of control over the present possibilities of inflation without the danger of seriously damaging investment and job prospects and causing unemployment.
Therefore, to get out of the difficulties which right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House and the trade union movement and many employers admit that the country faces, in the 1974–75 wage round we shall need a policy, however it may be achieved, of wage restraint. This is accepted by the unions in the guidelines that they have set out, particularly the 12 months' interval between claims continuing to apply.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: What about incomes?

Mr. Macmillan: I said "wage restraint" for two reasons. First, it is the main pressure on internal costs, and secondly, it is what is dealt with in the trade union guidelines which we are discussing. We need this policy of restraint not to put right errors of the past but, looking to the future, to achieve the prosperity which I believe we can still reach and to avoid the dangers which undoubtedly face this country which have been put before us by hon. Members on both sides of the House and by the Press.
I think that imported inflation is past its peak. Food and energy accounted for almost half the increase in the retail price element at its peak. Food prices are falling, energy prices are stabilising, and the prospects for the cost of raw materials seem more favourable to this country.
The underlying rate of inflation, which is now probably between 20 per cent.

and 30 per cent. at an annual rate, could come down to between 10 per cent. and 20 per cent. in a year provided that we can contain the domestic element in the cost of our goods and services. The main part of that domestic element consists of wages and salaries. It is no use right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite seeking to deny this fact. Whatever we may choose to do for other reasons to limit other forms of income, the main element in domestic costs, if material costs are stabilising, is wages and salaries. If in 1974–75 we could manage to hold wage settlements down to a level of about 15 per cent. and gradually lowering, the Government would be able to maintain a relatively steady position for wage earners' real disposable incomes and help to bring the rate of inflation below about 10 per cent, by the end of 1975. The problem is how to get that degree of restraint.
Some experts, I read in the Press, are already saying that it will require a wage freeze. I do not believe that is or need ever become necessary. I accept—no one more than I—the difficulties and limitations of a statutory policy. But there is no need to abolish the Pay Board in order to abandon the statutory policy. Under Section 4 of the 1973 Act we can stop it at any time by Order in Council. Of course, we could still bring it back up to the end of March 1976.
We are left with the social contract. I do not wish to belittle what the trade union movement is seeking to do in the social contract. I do not believe and never have believed, nor have any Government of which I have had the honour to be a member believed, that the policy of confrontation is or was wise or sensible. But we must admit that the concept underlying the social contract has had a mixed reception among trade union leaders. I suspect that many trade union leaders had some difficulty in explaining its implications to their membership. I understand their problem. Such a policy, compact or contract without any sanctions—whether they are voluntarily imposed by the unions upon themselves is immaterial—is dependent on strength. The effect of the guidelines on different groups of negotiators will depend very much on the industrial strength of the unions and industries concerned. I fear that under this type of policy we shall see again what 25


years of free collective bargaining produced—the lower paid falling steadily behind.
The Secretary of State referred to special cases. The trouble is that after he has abolished the Pay Board these ad hoc inquiries into one special case or the other will either add to inflationary pressures or produce more anomalies in the relationships between different wage groups than they solve. The Secretary of State is abolishing the machinery which otherwise would be available to him for conducting these inquiries more systematically.
In 1972 we sought a voluntary policy. That search ended in failure and resulted in a statutory policy. After the experience of the tripartite talks, which so nearly reached agreement, in 1972 there was a very wide area where the CBI, the TUC and the Government were in agreement. One of the areas of agreement was that it would be desirable for us to find the sort of voluntary policy contained in the present TUC guidelines. It was upheld by the union membership at those meetings as much as by anybody else that such a policy required to be fair and effective; and should contain a method of dealing with what came to be known as the "rogue elephants", a method which could police productivity bargains so that the false ones did not get through, and which could protect the weak against the strong. Whether or not there were legal sanctions as a backup to the decisions of a voluntary body was another matter. It was generally agreed that such a policing body ought to exist. It was in the light of moving smoothly, as the Secretary of State wanted to do, from a statutory to voluntary policy that the 1973 Act was designed, bearing in mind the agreement shared by the unions that there had to be some back-up for a voluntary policy.
The Pay Board, or the body which the Secretary of State could alter it to, could provide such a back-up power. We could abolish the policy. We could alter the whole nature of the Pay Board and Price Commission. We could combine them into one body. Whether there is one agency or two, we could vary their natures and have union and industrial representation. We could operate

through a code, or not. The code could be produced by the Treasury, or another Department, or by the Agency itself.
The instrument is potentially infinitely flexible. I am certain that something of this sort is needed by any Government to run any successful policy to counter inflation. It would be folly to throw it away in the manner suggested by the Secretary of State.
I urge the House to reject the order.

6.45 p.m.

Mr. Norman Atkinson: The right hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. Maurice Macmillan) has just described himself as a midwife in connection with this policy. He is again acting as the midwife of the Pay Board in erecting all the ancient, worn-out monuments, saying that if only we could try all these things again perhaps we could somehow find a solution to the present problems.
The right hon. Gentleman half hinted that the unions were not quite honouring their obligations within that social contract. We cannot talk about the social contract in isolation. We cannot discuss it without knowledge of what the Chancellor of the Exchequer is likely to say next week. We cannot discuss the social contract in the absence of the knowledge of what revenues will be available, what the Government are prepared to do about the social services, what the Government are prepared to make available from their resources to increase wages as a result of various reviews now going on. All those are extremely important elements within the social contract. Therefore, we are being a little premature at the moment to talk about the responsibilities of particular sections.
The right hon. Gentleman went on to talk about the necessity of having a Pay Board without perhaps statutory powers. I want to return to that in a moment because there is no purpose in having a Pay Board unless it has the statutory powers that he is so worried about.
There are a number of aspects of the debate which I think we ought to try to clarify. We should expose the dishonesty, which seems to me now to be apparent from the remarks made by the right hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior). It would seem that there is an understanding among hon. Gentlemen opposite that if they were successful in


being returned to power as a Government following the election they would introduce a statutory policy. That is implicit in the remarks already made. They would support the idea of a Pay Board, perhaps of a slightly different kind from the structure we now have.
The Liberal Party is also in favour of a statutory wage policy. It has said so quite openly and very clearly. Therefore, this seems to be the basis of an anti-wage, anti-trade union coalition which could arise if there were a repeat of the electoral situation we have now. That, I would think, is the purpose of the coalition.
The only thing to worry me in that situation is that it would be necessary, if that type of coalition were to succeed, for it to attempt to attract either trade union leaders or hon. Members from this side who could perhaps deliver some kind of trade union loyalty, to carry out some kind of trading arrangement of that sort, and to make overtures of that kind, in order to succeed in either an anti-trade union or an anti-wage coalition of the kind which I now suspect is beginning to be formulated opposite.
We can now see the plans which are taking shape. The purpose of a coalition as described by hon. Members opposite would be to contain the trade unions within the rigidities of a statutory wages policy, hoping that they can make such a coalition respectable by attracting hon. Members from this side of the House or people from the trade unions to take part in a charade of that kind. That is how, from the remarks made by the right hon. Member for Lowestoft, we would see the policy he has outlined.
Further to the dishonesty which I suggest is implicit in the remarks that the right hon. Gentleman has made, he says he would want a Pay Board without statutory powers. But there are no circumstances within which I could conceive of a Pay Board existing without statutory power to impose on society some form of compulsory wage restraint. If we are to have a Pay Board which has any function it must either act as a mechanism for arbitration, for bringing opposing sides together, or have a job to do similar to the one outlined by my right hon. Friend the Minister when he said there is a need to examine the relativities

between various industries and sections within those industries. If hon. Members opposite are talking about a Pay Board to perform that function, I would think that if they were honest they would support the outline proposals made by my right hon. Friend the Minister for the arbitration arrangements under the leadership of Jim Mortimer or under the commission to be set up under the leadership of Lord Diamond. That would provide the very mechanism of the Pay Board envisaged by hon. Members opposite.
The second point was that the Labour Party in government and in the local authorities had always and continuously given way to the trade unions' wage demands, and that that had either led to unemployment in such areas or was the basic cause of current inflation. All the evidence points the other way. I know of no employer anywhere who has conceded totally to trade union demands. I know of no employer who stands at the works gate handing out bonus packets and saying to the men "Thank you very much for being here. Have a little more on the way out." I have never known an employer who has not rigorously opposed trade union demands. The engineering employers have almost ruined their industry by their reluctance to concede even the base demands of the engineering unions. There is, therefore, no sign anywhere of employers throwing their money around in this fashion and giving in to the unions.
The situation concerning low pay, particularly as it affects teachers and nurses, is disgraceful. The public sector has been used regularly by successive Governments to regulate the economy. The first casualties of wage restraint have always been the workers directly employed by the Government, and they happen to be in a labour-intensive sector of the economy which leads the Government to believe that they provide a good, convenient and economically wise method of regulating wage demands. Governments, including Labour Governments, have, therefore, wrongly exploited people in the public sector to regulate the economy. That is one of the reasons why we demand free collective bargaining, particularly for the public sector. All low-wage workers nowadays are employed in the public sector and are in the main employed directly by


the Government. The Government are principally responsible for low par in this country—

Sir Keith Joseph: indicated assent.

Mr. Atkinson: I am glad to see that the right hon. Gentleman agrees with me. It is resistance of the Government's—

Mr. William Hamilton: And the farmers.

Mr. Atkinson: The farmers have exploited the poor organisation of agricultural workers, but in the main low pay in this country is a direct result of successive Government policies to exploit the people they employ.
The right hon. Member for Lowestoft was attempting to back every horse in the race. He spoke about strike action and said that there were concessions all the way along the line. If there were concessions by the employers, what was the need for the strikes? Why did he bother to raise the strikes bogy? What are the men striking for if the employers are conceding all the time? If the Government are conceding, why are the London teachers on strike? If the London weighting claim has been conceded all the way along the line, why are we faced with mass disruption of London industry and London services? Why are our kids being prevented from going to school? Why are there problems in the hospitals, and why are disputes cropping up in the way that they are? The reason is that this Government, like all other Governments, are reluctant to meet their obligations, in this case within the social contract. The Pay Board's report is now a very good reason for sacking the board as we are now about to do because it is an instrument of exploitation which has brought about the situation we now face.
I turn now to the effect of high wages on the economy. What has happened in phases 1, 2 and 3 of the pay policy we are now getting rid of? Here again the right hon. Member for Lowestoft wants to back every horse in the race. He says that as the level of demand rises that produces a propensity towards unemployment. Yet he is already on the record, like the right hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Barber), who used to back

every horse, as saying that low demand causes unemployment. So they go on, and whatever the situation, it produces, according to them, unemployment. The fact is that the base causes of the unemployment and the imbalances to which the right hon. Gentleman refers are endemic within the system.
The right hon. Gentleman spoke at great length about 20 per cent. and 30 per cent. wage increases, but let us consider carefully the effect of those increases on the level of demand. The important point is: 20 per cent. of what? If it is 20 per cent. of £25 a week, which represents only £5 increase for the individual, that is very different from 20 per cent. of a much higher wage. The whole question of inflation and wages is linked with the level of demand, and in those circumstances it is dishonest and totally misleading to use unweighted percentages in the way that the right hon. Gentleman did. The important points are how much money is being generated by the wage increases, and what the effect of that money is upon the level of demand. It is meaningless just to talk of percentages. The effect on the economy of a 25 per cent. increase in a nurse's wage is minimal compared with the effect of the 25 per cent. increase for a highly-paid worker. If the right hon. Gentleman wants us to take his economics seriously so that we may come to some conclusion about advice we can give to the trade unions he should not put forward misleading arguments like that.

Mr. Burden: Does the hon. Member not agree that one demand this country must generate is a demand in export markets for British goods? Does he accept that if we are not competitive abroad, irrespective of which Government may be in power, the standard of living at home will decline, unemployment will rise and the nation will be in absolute economic peril?

Mr. Atkinson: The hon. Member is absolutely right. I do not want to delay the House by going into detail on that point, however. Of course British manufacturing must be competitive; of course it is capital-intensive; of course over the last five years, particularly in engineering, the unit labour cost has gone down and the proportion paid in wages has dropped in relation to output; and of


course there have been massive reductions in the numbers employed in manufacturing industry with a consequent shift into the service industries; of course the hon. Member is right that our prices must be competitive. But if there has ever been one massive trade union contribution in this country it has been towards the competitiveness of British goods overseas. The trade union contribution has been the biggest single factor. Production figures in Britain are some of the finest in the world, and we have maximised the capitalisation of industry.

Mr. Burden: indicated dissent.

Mr. Atkinson: The hon. Member shakes his head, but, whatever the analysis of manufacturing industry, there is not one point of blame to be laid against trade unionists and the wage agreements they have negotiated. Their slate is clean. The problems in this country stem from the labour-intensive sectors of the economy—the public services.
It is here that difficulties start to arise, on the figures which the right hon. Gentleman was trying to use in his case against trade unions—that they nave been irresponsible in demanding wage agreements to which they are not entitled, that they have been greedy and have taken a bigger proportion of the cake than they are entitled to. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman is not here to answer a challenge I would like to put to him on some of the claims he has made, because they are bogus and misleading. I claim, and I will present the figures to him at any time, that the opposite is the case.
I we take phases 1, 2 and 3 of his own policy we find that the opposite applies. In phase 2, workers' standards in this country in terms of take-home pay went down. There was a 1 per cent. drop in the level of demand. We can see the figures in retrospect. We know what has happened in phase 3. My right hon. Friend has confirmed this afternoon that by November we can expect that in the preceding 12 months prices and incomes will have risen by a phenomenal amount, about 17 or 18 per cent.; but we also now know that, because of the three-day week and all the problems of taxation drift and so on, because of increased insurance costs and other things, if we take away all these deductions

from the workers' pay packet and look at the take-home pay we shall find when we get to the end of the 12 months period in November that the workers will be very lucky if they have improved the total amount of their take-home pay at the end of the year by anything like the 12 or 13 per cent. increase last year.
Comparing that with the prices index figure of 18 per cent., the level of demand in this country has fallen by a phenomenal amount and is still going down. I am glad the right hon. Gentleman agrees, because the figures are there for all to see.

Mr. Ian Lloyd: rose—

Mr. Atkinson: I cannot give way because I do not want to delay the House longer than is necessary but it is important that before such accusations are levelled at trade unions, and before people start saying trade unions leaders are deserting their responsibilities in demanding these phenomenal amounts, they should look at what is happening to the living standards of the members whom those leaders represent.

Mr. Ian Lloyd: rose—

Mr. Atkinson: So far as phase 3 is concerned we can expect the people of this country to have taken a drop in their living standard of, on average, about 5 per cent., and when people start making accusations we should bear that in mind and perhaps feel a little humble about the policies that have created that fall in living standards.

Mr. Ian Lloyd: The hon. Gentleman has asked us to take account of the facts. As OECD has pointed out, the real national product could well fall by 1·5 per cent. this year according to the best possible estimates. A vital contributory factor has been the withdrawal of real wealth from this economy by Arab oil producers. How is this factor of real wealth to be dealt with effectively if wage increases average 20 per cent.?

Mr. Atkinson: I promise faithfully, and I hope it will not be held against me, that I will not take up that challenge because I have said enough about the situation the Arabs are pushing us into, and beyond, and what has happened. But I believe that we have to get our


domestic economy right and not try to use the manipulation of our domestic economy to solve our overseas balance of payments problem, which is what we have consistently done.
On the point raised by the hon. Member for Havant and Waterloo (Mr. Lloyd), I at any rate accept all the implications of saying that we must have selective import controls, understanding what it means within GATT and the European Market conditions and so on. But it is no good the Conservative Party laying the foundation for making the situation worse by having oil-burning power stations and increasing the use of oil domestic heating. We have to take all these problems into account. That was why I said at the beginning that we can judge the efficacy of a social contract only if we can see the picture as a whole.
I would love to take up the points made by the hon. Member and put a trade union point of view in answering some of the accusations implicit in all these remarks but I know that my hon. Friends are anxious to make a much more valuable contribution, anyway. I say that very genuinely because I believe that after all the mistakes this place has made we should be extremely humble in talking about people outside and the contribution they have to make.
If we are to be critical of people who are working down a pit or in a factory or wherever they are producing the real wealth, a bit of humility on our part would be a good thing. It has to be recognised—since you, Mr. Speaker, were in the saddle—that we have been blamed more than anybody else but we in this place have a long record of failure and it is about time that we started to face the real world and come to decent conclusions. Then perhaps we can talk about a genuine contract between labour and capital. If that is what the House requires, let us talk about it totally and not pick out sections of the community and make false accusations against them.

7.6 p.m.

Mr. Cyril Smith: I shall not attempt to follow the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) except in one respect—that is, his reference to his dream about the basis of some future coalition

being a kind of anti-trade union party. He had better leave fairy stories to those better able than himself to write them.
Before getting to the substance of what I intended to say, I must turn to the attack made by the Secretary of State for Employment on myself and my Liberal colleagues. I believe I am entitled to reply to some of those comments. The first thing I am bound to say is that the right hon. Gentleman was rather carried away with the exuberance of his own verbosity, as he so often is when he gets to the Dispatch Box. I suspect that the support he was receiving from some of his hon. Friends behind him tended to carry him away and led him to quote an example which clearly, after my intervention, he had no intention of quoting.
Since the right hon. Gentleman has quoted it and since it is on record, I have now to divulge to the House the full situation in the case to which he referred. He stated that I had written to him urging a settlement in the engineering dispute which was outside the prices and incomes policy that my party sought to oppose. A Minister of State had been approached by Sir Arnold Weinstock of the General Electric Company asking for a meeting with the Employment Minister so that as an employer of over 40,000 people in the engineering industry he could make the situation clear in relation to that claim.
I had never in my life met Sir Arnold before meeting him for that purpose and I have never met him since. But as the Secretary of State for Employment, despite the intervention of another member of the Cabinet, had not been able to meet Sir Arnold, I was contacted by the leader of my party and asked if I was prepared to meet Sir Arnold so that his views could be conveyed to the Government. That I did. I made it absolutely clear in correspondence that I was in no way supporting the case Sir Arnold was putting but was merely acting as an intermediary between him and the Minister whom he had attempted to see, and was still willing to see, to put his point of view concerning that settlement.
It is a gross breach of courtesy and etiquette for the right hon. Gentleman to stand at the Dispatch Box this afternoon and quote against me, as an individual Member of the House, without even having given me notice of the fact that


he proposed to do so, an instance of that kind as being something in support of the policy he put before the House this afternoon. I consider it not only an utter, gross discourtesy but, more than that, an utter and gross distortion of the facts.
The Secretary of State then proceeded to deal with my colleagues. For example, he took to task my hon. Friend the Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. Steel). I happen to have before me the correspondence that passed between the right hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend. In that correspondence my hon. Friend said:
I am disturbed by his answer in the first place because any fair approach to prices and incomes must surely include special consideration for the lowest paid regions.
In his letter to the Secretary of State for Employment on 14th May, my hon. Friend said:
This underlines the point I made in relation to … wages which so far remains unanswered, namely, that in such a low wage area of the country any sane prices and incomes policy should be operating to secure greater social justice and equity in wage levels as between one region and another.
Yet the right hon. Gentleman said that the letter suggested that there should be no prices and incomes policy.
The Secretary of State went on to deal with my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe). Let me draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the proceedings on the Counter-Inflation Bill and to Amendments Nos. 31 and 32 appearing on the Amendment Paper on 27th February 1973. Those amendments were in the names of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Liberal Party, my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North, my hon. Friend the Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson), to whom the Secretary of State also referred.
Amendment No. 31 read as follows:
after 'remuneration', insert—
'other than a remuneration which is less than £22 a week'".
Amendment No. 32 read as follows:
after 'remuneration', insert—
'other than a remuneration paid to any person working within a development area'".
The Committee was unable to reach those two amendments, but had they

been carried they would not have been contrary to the policy which was propounded in the letters sent to the Minister by my hon. Friends the Members for Cornwall, North and for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles.
The Secretary of State went on to refer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond). Here he made a grave error, because my right hon. Friend was the one member of the Liberal Party who refused to go into the Lobby with us.
I very much hope that when in future the Secretary of State chooses to attack me and other members of my party he will at least get his facts straight and follow the normal etiquette and courtesy of the House. I hope he will not quote exchanges of opinion between one hon. Member and another and that he will not insult my hon. Friends as he chose to do this afternoon.
In introducing the Counter-Inflation Bill 1973, the Minister said that the object of the Bill was
the control of inflation and steadier prices; … particular help for the lower paid; and … the continued growth of the economy ".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th January 1973; Vol. 849, c. 953.]
Clearly, the Act and its implementation have failed on all four counts. I do not lay the blame on anyone. A great deal of hot air is generated in talking about which party is responsible for what. The views of the parties on prices and incomes policy are often determined by the side of the House on which hon. Members sit when a vote is taken. I have here the record of the votes in 1966 on the Prices and Incomes Bill introduced by the Labour Government. The right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot), who today is Secretary of State for Employment, went into the Lobby supporting a prices and incomes policy in 1966. Several hon. Members who share the Opposition side of the House with me went into the Lobby against a prices and incomes policy in 1966.
In 1972 the position had changed, and the votes changed too. If I or my hon. Friends are accused of doing a U-turn, hon. Members on the Government benches cannot gay much on that score.
It is clear that the policy failed and that its aims were not achieved. Successive Governments have struggled with prices and incomes—

Mr. Stanley Newens: I take it that the hon. Gentleman is not maintaining that all Government supporters executed a U-turn because I and several of my hon. Friends opposed the statutory incomes policy put forward by the Labour Government, just as we oppose it now.

Mr. Smith: I accept entirely what the hon. Gentleman says and the implication behind it, although I understand that he was not a Member of the House in 1972.

Mr. Newens: Before 1972.

Mr. Smith: I entirely accept the hon. Gentleman's intervention.
The Liberal Party has always believed and still believes in a statutory prices and incomes policy. The reason for the failure of the present policy—and of any policy which is based on the present pattern—is that it produces only partial control. The Labour Party is anxious to control prices but is not too anxious to control wages. The Conservative Party is anxious to control wages but not too anxious to control prices. One reason for the failure of the past policies of successive Governments is their deliberate failure to grasp the nettle of their side of the coin.

Mr. Nicholas Ridley: The hon. Gentleman speaks of grasping the nettle, but what has happened to the Liberal policy of drastically increasing the national insurance contributions of groups of workers who obtain excessive wage increases? When will the hon. Gentleman advocate that policy for miners, engineers, nurses and all the workers who have big in-ceases coming to them? Is that suggestion being dropped from the Liberal Party policy? It was a policy on which the Liberals fought the last election.

Mr. Smith: Of course it has not been dropped. Liberals do not put forward one policy at one election and a different one at the next. Our policy of worker participation has been constant since 1929, not since 1970. Our policy on increasing national insurance contributions is exactly

the same. If time allowed I should be happy to develop the argument, because we accept that within a prices and incomes policy it is necessary to give greater emphasis to the lower paid and less emphasis to the higher paid. That policy was followed by the Relativities Board. Under the Liberal Party such relativities could be taken care of within the policy to which the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) has referred.
In 1965 the TUC set up its own wage vetting system. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) would do well to listen.

Mr. Skinner: I am listening, but it is difficult to follow the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Smith: I understand that the hon. Gentleman takes an interest in what is happening now, but I am not sure of his command of history, so let me give him a little history lesson. I shall try to do it slowly so that he can understand it.
In 1965 the TUC set up its own wage vetting system in response to the Labour Party's prices and incomes crisis. That policy worked for a time, but it did not last. [Interruption.] If the hon Member for Bolsover wishes to interrupt he should go and talk to his brother at Clay Cross, from whom he will receive more attention than he is likely to get from me.
The fact is that the 1965 policy worked for a short time but it did not last. The key issue in the context of the social contract is that however excellent, honest or real is the desire of the TUC to have some sort of wage policy, the problem is that the TUC has not the power to implement the policy which it seeks to achieve. It can persuade and cajole, but it does not have the power within the trade union movement. If it had that power many of us would be happier than we are and far more willing to consider a voluntary policy of price and wage restraint.

Mr. Skinner: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Smith: No.

Mr. Skinner: But the hon. Gentleman referred to me.

Mr. Smith: The fact is that the present Government have delivered the carrot to the trade union movement. We are


waiting to see the result of the social contract. We hope that the social contract will work and we wish it well, but we view with some alarm, though not with despondency, the level of wage increases which are now being settled. We know that there has been an ICI pay increase of 17 per cent. and that the Shell refinery workers have been offered 25 per cent.—although in that case there is some ambiguity about the percentage. The Post Office workers have settled for 11 per cent. There have been local settlements at Perkins of Peterborough of £2·75 per week when stage 3 ends. Cannon Industries, at Bilston, have given £2·57 per week and promised another £1·75 at the end of stage 3. There is a distinct possibility of a flood of wage demands when the policy has ended and the Pay Board goes. That surely must give rise to concern.
It is interesting to note that at a time when the nation is concerned about inflationary wage increases the Labour Government are talking about having a General Election. This was one of the contributory factors in determining the date of the 1970 General Election. The Labour Government in 1970 were well aware of the high inflationary wage increases which were round the corner, and undoubtedly that had an effect on determining the date of the election. In our view, the essence of a good prices and incomes policy is social justice. We believe that if workers are to be expected to show restraint—

Mr. Skinner: Will the hon. Gentleman consider, within the general overall Liberal package which he says involves social justice, whether there should be a comprehensive system of controlling all the points at which the policy could be broken by groups or individuals? Will he include in that package a proposition to prevent the Leader of the Liberal Party, as a director of several companies, being able to obtain 10,000 incentive shares for doing little or nothing, at a time when we were in the middle of a wage freeze? If he agrees that proposition, will he also remind the House that the new acquisition of the Liberal Party, the hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew), canvassed against an incomes policy?

Mr. Smith: I understand that in his election address my hon. Friend the

Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew) supported the policy which I am now propagating.

Mr. Skinner: The hon. Member for Woolwich, East fought on the Labour manifesto.

Mr. Christopher Mayhew: I did not.

Mr. Smith: There should be all sorts of restraints in any package deal. However, I shall treat the intervention by the hon. Member for Bolsover in the way in which it deserves to be treated—namely, by ignoring it. If workers have to show restraint, people in superior places and positions must also show restraint; there must be sacrifices all round. There must be positive measures to redistribute wealth and a policy of helping the lower paid. I hope that I shall be able to carry many Labour Members with me on that proposition.
It has been Liberal policy for some years that there should be a guaranteed minimum wage. It is intriguing that many wage councils have not taken up the option of threshold wage agreements. The wage councils concerned are often those that deal with the lower paid, and indeed with the lowest paid. We believe in a minimum wage for industry—[Interruption.] Let me say this to Labour Members who constantly interrupt from seated positions. I hope that this policy will commend itself to the Labour Party since it is the policy of the Transport and General Workers Union. I recently had the pleasure of reading a booklet published by that union during the past month in support of that policy, and I wrote to the union complimenting it on its views.
It is clear that a minimum wage policy and its introduction would take some time. We do not believe that this can be done at a stroke, but we believe that one can set a target and reach it within a period of three years—in other words, during the life of a five-year Government. I believe that the introduction of a minimum wage throughout the country would be one of the surest ways of combating poverty, especially if it was understood that people higher up the ladder must stand still until the people on the bottom rung had a chance to get their foot on to the second rung of the ladder.


We accept that the Pay Board is a dead duck—indeed, half its staff have already left Even if some order were brought in to retain the Pay Board in sheer organisational terms, it would be difficult to keep it in existence. My colleagues and I will go into the Lobby tonight with the Government to support the scrapping of the board. The hon. Member for Bolsover, having intervened in my remarks, has now been rude enough to leave the Chamber without hearing me complete my speech. Just as we saved the Government by three votes last night, the possibility is that we shall be able to save them again tonight. We believe that it is the Government's job to assist the pay policy of the country in the light of our economy and that it should be done not by an agency set-up but within the precincts of the House of Commons.
In closing, I wish to pay tribute to the staff of the Pay Board, as indeed did the Secretary of State. I urge the tight hon. Gentleman to do all he can to rehabilitate the staff and to absorb them into new organisations where possible. This will ensure that their expertise and knowledge, built up during their Pay Board service, are put to the best use. We very much hope that the Government are right in their hopes for the social contract. We look forward to hearing details of the work of the proposed Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth. Meanwhile we agree to the scrapping of the Pay Board, not because we believe that the principle is wrong but because we feel that the method of working has become impracticable. For that reason we shall support the Government in the Division Lobby.

7.30 p.m.

Mr. Tom Boardman: I was extremely pleased to hear the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith) exposing the distortions made by the Secretary of State, which were typical of so many of the right hon. Gentleman's remarks. I am surprised, however, that the hon. Gentleman and his party, who have been such firm advocates of a permanent statutory policy, should nave decided to cast their votes tonight in support of the Government.
The issue is not whether we like the Pay Board. The issue is the one fairly

presented by the Secretary of State, whether we want any form of parliamentary control over these matters or whether they are to be left to a free-for-all. As I understand it, the hon. Member for Rochdale did not advocate a return to a free-for-all. His policy is one of considerably more severity than has been advocated by the Conservative Party.
I want now to refer to the speech of the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson). In it I found a number of matters with which I agreed. I agreed with what he said about the public sector having been left behind for a very long time. I agreed very much when he said that we had to have humility in this House, and on both sides of it, because all parties had failed, tragically in many ways, to find the right solution. We must endeavour to find the answer.
The problem that we have is not whether we wish to have a form of incomes policy for the sake of it, but how we tackle the problem of inflation. We must all recognise that inflation is the greatest social and economic evil that there is, and we must cure it. I do not want to rake over the ashes of the past—that is the rôle of the economic or political archaeologist—but we must learn lessons from what has been happening in recent years. We have to learn from our mistakes.
The Secretary of State justified the order removing the Pay Board largely on the ground that he was restoring to Parliament its authority over these matters and over the control of inflation. I find it impossible to accept the right hon. Gentleman's argument. I believe that the authority of Parliament, not necessarily because of the existence of the counter-inflation policy, although it has a rôle in it, has been sadly eroded not just over the past few months but over a number of years past. Our first duty must be to restore the authority of Parliament and to find out why it has been eroded. If it continues to slide as it has done in recent years, especially if it continues the slither that it has taken in recent months, we shall move rapidly to a state of anarchy.
The rot started back in the time of "In Place of Strife", when the Conservative Opposition were prepared to support the approach of the Government, although we had misgivings about some of their policies towards the trade unions.


However, the Labour Government of the day surrendered and withdrew that policy. From that moment the relationship betwen this House and the trade union movement changed. The balance shifted dramatically.
If the Labour Party had adhered to its policy in "In Place of Strife" it would have won the 1970 election. I think I would have lost my seat. Painful as that might have been for me and perhaps for some others it would been in the longer-term interests of Parliament that that result came about and the authority of this House was reaffirmed.
In 1970, when the Conservative Party returned to Government, we relied on the policy of free collective bargaining. We coupled that with what we believed to be the fair regulation of industrial power. We believed this to be an essential pairing and that we had first to achieve the fair regulation of industrial power, with which free collective bargaining could operate fairly and control inflation. Tragically, the Labour Opposition joined the trade union movement in resisting that fair regulation of industrial power. The result was mounting inflation, and we were unable to go ahead and hold to free collective bargaining. That was our conversion to statutory control. After every effort had been made by the then Prime Minister to get a voluntary agreement, we were forced to accept statutory policies.
Most of my right hon. and hon. Friends hated those_ policies, but we saw no alternative. We believed that it was necessary to impose them in order that the inflationary trends could be halted and in order that we might provide greater protection for the weaker sections of society.

Mr. William Molloy: I accept what the hon. Gentleman says about "In Place of Strife" and what happened afterwards, but if we are to be frank we have to go all the way. There were other factors which irritated the working man. He saw, for example, colleagues of the hon. Gentleman giving millions of pounds to the wealthy. Then he read about the people involved in the Cayman Islands deal. All these matters were discussed on shop floors up and down the country, and working men felt

that if rich people could get away with it, why should not they have a go? It appeared to them that the well off seemed to be able to behave as they liked.

Mr. Boardman: I do not want to delve into the reasons or the motives of the trade union movement. I want merely to explain the reasons for the imposition of statutory policies, and how matters developed from there.
I hated the statutory policies, but I believed them to be necessary at the time. We were determined to get rid of them as soon as an alternative means could be provided. Every policy of the previous administration was directed to that end. We recognised the anomalies and distortions that the system created, and the unfairness of rigid controls. We knew that the ways in which they could be evaded by means of promotions and changes in job titles were abuses of the spirit and the intention of the Act.
If we had been able to continue with the development of phase 3, moving into phase 4 with greater flexibility and a fairly rapid move back to a large measure of collective bargaining, I believe that we could have achieved relationships of the kind that I would have supported and, at the same time, that we could have controlled inflation. Tragically, that was not to be so, I believe because of the subservience of the Labour Party to elements in the trade union movement which made them decide to oppose us.
The Secretary of State makes repeated references to the miners and their strike. The Prime Minister never fails at Question Time to refer to the three-day week. I ask Government supporters to cast their minds back to that time. Knowing that there was machinery established under the Counter-Inflation Act which had been approved by Parliament to see that the miners got a fair settlement—the Relativities Board—and knowing that it was the intention of a number of the miners' leaders, though not all of them, to bring down the Government of the day, was it a responsible attitude for the present Prime Minister to support their attempts to overthrow the Government? Recognising, as he has admitted on a number of occasions, the great damage that the strike would do the country, on no occasion did the Prime Minister ask the miners to return to work so that their


claim could be looked at by the Relativities Board to see that they got a settlement which, when the report came, would be seen to be fair to them.
The fact that the Prime Minister decided to back those who wanted to bring down the Government has significantly undermined the authority of Parliament. It resulted in the Labour Party getting the lowest vote for some 40 years. Since then, the Prime Minister has found his position and that of the authority of Parliament eroded in a way which has not been seen before.
There has been, despite the point repeated by the Secretary of State, an abject submission to almost every demand made by the trade union movement on the Government. The order we are debating has been brought forward in direct response to the trade unions' demand that the Pay Board should be abolished. There are those such as Mr. Scanlon who today have more authority than members of the Cabinet, more authority, for instance, than the Secretary of State for Education who, when in Opposition, made some brave speeches in support of parliamentary authority prevailing over extremism outside.
I do not wish to detain the House by recalling the slide that has taken place since February. I wish to look at the future and at the order which we are debating. The consequences of the order mean a free for all, no restraint and, I fear, a big boost to inflation. I accept that rigid pay controls can never continue for long. I support free collective bargaining. I support that wherever we can be satisfied that both sides are free and have reasonably equal bargaining power.
I believe that in most of industry and commerce there is a growing recognition that the interests of employers and employee are complementary. There is a recognition by those employed that their jobs, homes, holidays and pensions depend on their employer not only remaining in business but remaining prosperous. There is a recognition that by overpricing their demands they can price themselves out of jobs. We have seen a number of illustrations of this.
I accept that we should have free collective bargaining in the areas of which I speak, provided that the Government accept that if employees are greedy—

Mr. Molloy: Or if the employers are greedy.

Mr. Boardman: —or if employers are weak the taxpayer is not left to pick up the bill. If we are to have free collective bargaining the consequences of overpricing demands and of weaknesses must fall on those who are at fault and must not be left to be met by the taxpayer.
I recognise that one of many weaknesses of a statutory policy is that it can itself be inflationary. The ceiling of a statutory policy becomes the floor, and the House will recognise that, in the result, the phase 3 ceiling was inflationary. Yet there are areas where free collective bargaining cannot fairly operate, where power is all on one side, where the employer cannot go bankrupt and where the public cannot do without the goods and services supplied. This is mainly, though not necessarily, in the public sector. The criterion is monopoly, not ownership of the enterprise. In this area the Government have a rôle—indeed, a duty—to keep a balance. There cannot be free collective bargaining where an employee can say "Pay up or else"—where the "else" is national ruin. In these circumstances there must be an umpire, some form of arbitration body. This is a rôle which the Pay Board, or some similar, independent body, could well fulfil.
This rôle the hon. Member for Tottenham said, could be fulfilled by the Royal Commission, but hon. Members will know of the slowness with which Royal Commissions come to their conclusions, and in this instance the Royal Commission is not equipped for the job. There must be a body which, where there is a monopoly of power, is able to say whether a decision or agreement is fair to both sides and to the public. There must also be sanctions imposed and upheld by Parliament and applied to those who defy the rules. The rules and terms on which findings or rulings of arbitration must be conducted must in these areas—I am talking purely of areas where there is monopoly power and where an employer cannot go bankrupt and the public cannot do without the goods and services supplied—must be such that the employer, the employee and the public are not exploited.
I agree with the hon. Member for Tottenham that in the public sector employees have often been exploited. I


do not want to make party points, but the miners were kept at a low wage relative to the rest of the community in the period when the Labour Party was previously in Government. I must concede that the miners got an increase as a result of pressure on us which we endeavoured to resist. If we look at the whole public sector we find that employees have been exploited, but now they have found they have the power to exploit the public.
In these areas we must have a way of ensuring that terms are fixed which are fair to both sides. In so far as sanctions restrict the freedom of those employed in these areas there must be an assurance that the terms offered to them will be at least comparable to those offered to them who are not subject to such restrictions. Employees should also be entitled to some premium for accepting restrictions which are not applied generally outside. There must be some board or body to ensure that we get a smooth transition from what has been the position into the free collective bargaining which, I hope, we can have.
We are debating the order at a time when figures announced this morning show that weekly wage rates in the past two months have risen at an annual rate of 42·6 per cent. This is a time when party doctrinaire policies must be put on one side so as to achieve, if we can achieve, a sensible policy of restraining wage demands which would otherwise spark off hyper-inflation. I accept that a large element of rapid pay increases has been due to the threshold agreements which we introduced when in Government and which were supported by the Labour Party. but the free for all that can so easily follow the removal of all control, by means of the order, piled on top of the threshold agreements, with no control over intervals between wage demands, can lead to a type of hyperinflation which this country must never see if it is to survive.
The sole protection offered is the social contract, a very conditional contract to which many trade union leaders have paid only scant lip service. Mr. Scargill, for instance, has said:
The National Union of Mineworkers has only one social contract—a loyalty to the membership. There can be no contract with a capitalist system.

There are other examples of this attitude. I wonder to what extent we can place all our economic future upon the keeping of that social contract. I accept that there are many trade union leaders and a large part of trade union membership who will wish to see that contract honoured to the full and who will do-their utmost to bring their colleagues into line with them.
I wonder also what further prices the Secretary of State will be prepared to pay to ensure that the social contract is kept. He paid some big prices to get it made. Are there further bills to be picked up so that it is kept? I wonder how much longer the so-called moderates like Mr. Joe Gormley of the NUM will override the more strident voices of the Mick McGaheys. I use them only as examples, but hon. Members know that there are those who will seek to destroy the social contract. I wonder whether they will all be good boys till the next election and, if so, what will happen then.
The order removes the only instrument to contain unreasonable demands and to resist undue pressures—some may say blackmail—by those with monopoly power, and the only means of resisting an unfair distribution. I recognise its imperfections and I hope that we can operate without it, but to remove the power to have a Pay Board, a body to fulfil whatever rôle the Government of the day believe proper in the interests of all the people, is a matter of grave regret and shows immense irresponsibility. It yields to those who are able and prepared to use industrial power at the expense of those who are too weak or too responsible or unable to do so. For that reason and that reason only, not because I love pay boards or statutory counter-inflation policies, I must oppose the order.

7.52 p.m.

Mr. Stanley Newens: The hon. Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Boardman) talked of trade unionists exploiting the public. Like his right hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior) and several of his hon. Friends, he argued as though wage increases—

Mr. Arthur Lewis: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I know that one must not criticise the Chair, but I want to make a statement, with your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have sat—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): Order. The hon. Member may raise a point of order but not make a statement.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: Then I want to raise a point of order. I have sat in the Chamber from 2.30 except for three minutes when I went out to make a phone call. I have seen right hon. and hon. Members on both sides come in, get called, speak and walk out. I am not objecting to my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Mr. Newens) being called but I strongly object to the fact that hon. Members who sit here throughout the debate and never leave the Chamber are never called, while the hon. Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Boardman) can say that he was not present to hear the opening speeches and that after he had made his speech he will be leaving and will not be back for the closing speeches. Having said that, I too will now walk out.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I think that that answers the point of order.

Mr. Newens: I was saying that the hon. Member for Leicester, South and a number of his hon. Friends had argued as though wage increases were the major cause of inflation. He spoke of the monopoly power of trade unions and blamed working people as the root cause of inflation. That argument is insupportable because it completely neglects the other causes of inflation, such as increasing unit costs, shrinking demand, the rapid increase in world commodity prices, the great upsurge in rates of interest and soaring land values, pushed up by speculators. All these factors have played a considerable part in causing inflation.
The right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends are totally unfair when they suggest that throughout this period wage inflation has been the major cause of inflation.

Mr. Prior: Since the hon. Gentleman has mentioned me as saying this, I should point out that I read a quotation from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which I no longer have with me, having sent it upstairs. That quotation said plainly that, now that commodity prices were evening out, the main source of inflation in future would be wage inflation. I was merely quoting the right hon. Gentleman, but I think we all know this to be true.

Mr. Newens: I heard a good deal of what the right hon. Gentleman said, but he is dodging my point by sheltering behind my right hon. Friend's quotation. Far too many hon. Members opposite say that the major cause of inflation is increases in wages. This is a class argument. The Conservatives argue that some of us on this side talk in class terms. But they are talking in class terms when they suggest that working people are the major cause of inflation. I find it odious and repellent to any sense of justice and equity that men earning £50,000 to £100,000 a year, or even, like all of us in this House, £5,000 a year, should complain about the effects on the economic health of this country of those who earn the most paltry wages, under £20 or £30 a week.
It is sanctimonious humbug for people to talk in those terms who could not live on 10 times the income that they expect to be sufficient for others—particularly when much of the income drawn by the wealthier class of the community is unearned income, for which they do not have to exert themselevs in any real labour.

Mr. Michael Marshall: Would the hon. Gentleman not agree that this is a matter not of class but of simple arithmetic? We do not wish to make a party point, but surely he should be willing to do his sums. If he takes the rate of wage increases gained by 9 million trade unionists and compares the total with the kind of wage increases that he may care to take from among the over-£5,000 a year executives, he will find that the two sums do not compare. We have to look at where the greatest weight of wage increases falls.

Mr. Newens: But is there any equity or justice in people saying "If I get my salary increase or my unearned income goes up by £10,000 a year, I am only one and that will not affect the economy; what matters is when 9 million trade unionists get their much smaller increases."? One cannot expect trade unionists or those who are not unionists but belong to the lower-paid sections to accept that it is a law of society which they should not seek to change that their incomes should be restrained while the incomes of much better off people are not so restrained.
Inflation would have occurred under the Conservative Government from 1970 even if the working class had accepted wage cuts. Inflation occurred during the freeze, when the major causes of inflation were imported. Those who blame the trade unions and bleat about the lower paid, for whom they usually do nothing, are in reality expecting working people to absorb rising costs and accept a lower standard of living, which the majority of them are not prepared to do.
The statutory policy did not help the lower paid. It did a great deal of harm to their standards. Experience proves that wages, where they rise, certainly do not rise because of a statutory incomes policy. Wages may rise where there is a shortage of labour and people pay more in order to attract labour. But, generally, wages rise where the front runners, who are often militant trade unionists, have achieved higher standards and others argue for increases in reference to those higher standards. In talking in terms of nurses or teachers, one often quotes ex-examples of what other workers have achieved, very often as a result of trade union struggles.
A statutory incomes policy has done nothing to raise standards, real or in any other respect, of lower-paid workers. The nurses, hospital ancillary workers, teachers and people who have been employed by the State have, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) pointed out, been exploited by the community over a considerable period. A statutory incomes policy has restrained lower-paid workers. The freeze did that, and so did the Pay Board.
I want to refer to a particular example which illustrates the perverse way in which the Pay Board could behave. In doing so, I had better declare an interest. I am a director of the London Cooperative Society. This example concerns the wages of Co-operative employees. The Pay Board intervened under stage 2 to restrain the wage increase of Co-operative employees, which caused considerable dissatisfaction. An order was laid in the House. That was prayed against, but the Prayer was then voted down—as a result of the votes of right hon. and hon. Members of the Opposition. Subsequently, an employee of the London Co-operative Society initiated a

legal action with the support, as it happened, of her trade union, the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers. That action against the London Cooperative Society was heard in the county court. The county court found for the plaintiff. Therefore, the Pay Board agreed to allow the increase to be paid, and Co-operative societies throughout the country paid out.
Everyone thought that that was the end of the matter, but in due course, when the settlement under stage 3 was reached between the Co-operative employers and the trade unions, the Pay Board stepped in and ordered that the amount paid out in excess of the stage 2 limit as laid down by the Pay Board—despite the fact that it had been paid out because of the test case in the county court—must be deducted from the stage 3 settlement.
One can imagine the sense of injustice that it produced among low-paid shop workers when they realised that the Pay Board was to deny them the opportunity of having an increase which had been agreed between the employers and the trade unions. Despite everything that could be said, the Pay Board remained firm.
If the Pay Board had remained in existence and been successful, it would undoubtedly have produced a strike among a section of workers who have an excellent record of good labour relations, a strike which would have been caused through no fault whatsoever of the employers. That is not an isolated case, as hon. Members who have followed these matters know very well.
We have at present—but I hope not after today—an institution which has often produced industrial strife instead of mitigating it or doing away with it. In those circumstances there is a very strong case for the abolition of the Pay Board. It has not even been useful in helping to prevent industrial strife in many cases; nor has it been useful in helping to uplift low-paid workers. Even when gross pay increases apparently keep pace with the increases in the cost of living, and when one considers the increased level of deductions in many cases, one finds that those who receive these pay increases are worse off in real wage terms. I believe that is so in the case of the lower-paid nurses at present.


If the Pay Board were not abolished now, the industrial disputes produced by the deep sense of injustice felt by many workers would undoubtedly multiply and the situation would become very much worse than it is at present. Many people who belong to the upper and middle-class echelons of society are able to avoid the limitations which are imposed by the Pay Board. It is possible to do this in many cases by changing one's job, or by moving around, with a, certain amount of subterfuge accepted by an employer, when a job is redesignated. It is possible for certain sections of society to do this, but not for other sections. This means that the Pay Board perpetuates injustice and helps to increase dissatisfaction throughout the community.
The hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith), who has now left the Chamber with his Liberal colleagues, talked about U-turns. I hope that the hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen), whom I see seated on the Liberal bench, is not following the example of the hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew), who was previously my hon. Friend. The hon. Member for Rochdale said that there had been many U-turns. I have not made a U-turn on this issue. I have endeavoured to be consistent throughout. I opposed the statutory incomes policy before 1970 and I have opposed it since. That is not because I do not believe in equity and justice. It is because a statutory incomes policy, as we have seen it, militates against equity and justice.
I look forward to a Socialist policy in which there will be a radical redistribution of wealth in society as a whole. In those circumstances there will have to be genuine equity in incomes, but that can be achieved only in those circumstances. Until then I oppose a statutory incomes policy which is a fraud and a decoy. The Pay Board is a part of that fraud and decoy and must go. I shall certainly take great pleasure in voting for the order. I very much hope that we shall see the end of what has been a very unfortunate experience and that we shall learn sufficient not to bring back anything similar in its place.

8.10 p.m.

Mr. Nicholas Ridley: The hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Newens) seemed to me to

talk a good deal of sense. I agreed with much of what he said. But what has interested me about his speech and about much of the debate so far is the small extent to which we have talked about inflation and the large extent to which we have talked about one group of workers or another, one anomaly, one particular situation, or the effect of wage rises and the speed with which they are taking place.
Where I would cross swords with the hon. Gentleman is on his audacity in suggesting that property speculators were causing inflation. I remind him that the price of property is falling, but inflation still seems to be getting worse. How the hon. Gentleman can blame property speculators I do not know. He also talked about import prices. Does he not know that they are falling too? It might have been wiser if he had concluded that it is not imports, property speculators, trade unions or any other group in society that cause inflation; it is Governments who spend too much money.

Mr. Newens: I agree that commodity prices are going down and that there has been a change in the property market, but I was speaking in a rather longer-term sense. I hope the hon. Gentleman will agree that during the past decade a considerable measure of inflation has been produced by precisely those two factors, increases in commodity prices and property speculation, although I entirely accept that there is a change in the climate.

Mr. Ridley: I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman that the two things he mentioned have had any affect upon inflation. It is a fascinating thought that the only item that was not controlled by the Price Commission under stage 3 was the price of houses, and it is the only item that is falling in price, apart from shares on the Stock Exchange. How those who advocate the control of prices and incomes by law can square that, I do not know.
I want to ask the supporters of such policies an even more urgent and fundamental question. We are on the brink of inflation which will sweep away society as we have known it, our economy as we have used it and the civilised life that has existed in these islands for centuries. We


are on the brink of an anarchy which will breed more inflation, which will in itself breed more anarchy.
In the light of the possible impending Armageddon, we must ask ourselves whether we are justified in going on fooling around with the sort of policies we have been employing. My right hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior) went through the list—the Three Wise Men, the guiding lights, the norms, the nil norms, the prices and incomes boards, the pay boards, all the paraphanalia. My right hon. Friend the Member for Farnham (Mr. Macmillan) also mentioned them. My right hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft came to the wrong conclusion. He said that we must devise a policy which works. The right conclusion is that none of them works. None of them has ever worked, and in my opinion none ever will.
Nor do I think it is all that desirable that they should have worked. For them to have worked would have delivered into the hands of the bureaucrats great power and authority, and it would have caused misallocation of resources. If the miners had been held down in 1972 and again in 1974, so that they received only the permitted increases under the policy, how many miners would we have in the pits today? What would be the work force? How would the distribution of labour in the economy ever be achieved if we were able to hold people to the norms dreamt up in codes and White Papers? I do not believe that it is always desirable that we should seek to achieve the degree of control that my right hon. Friends have been seeking.
I do not think that it matters whether the policy is compulsory or voluntary. By definition, if it is to work it must achieve results of the sort I have mentioned, which would be unfavourable. But all this seems to me to be academic, because the truth is that the policy has not worked. When phase I came in, the rate of inflation was about 7½ per cent. per annum. It is now probably over 20 per cent. We have seen the rate per annum treble during the period when the toughest statutory prices and incomes policy has been in force.
Has anyone come to the conclusion that there is something we can do about the statutory prices and incomes policy to make it more effective? I have not

heard during the whole debate one suggestion for rectifying the errors which are all too patent in what we have been seeking to do. If we have the courage to be honest with ourselves, we shall admit that it has not worked.
Of course, it is infinitely desirable that a device should be found that would work. Most right hon. and hon. Members would like to find such a device, as would the National Institute and The Times. They would like a device whereby we could continue to keep the economy going at a high rate, with full employment, and yet stop prices rising. We are seeking a sort of philosopher's stone that we have never yet found.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft quoted The Times leader of this morning. He did not go to the end of it, and therefore I should like to quote this passage:
The last Conservative government committed a grave error of economic management in trying to control inflation by excessive reliance on wage and price controls, while following recklessly expansionist monetary and fiscal policies. The result was intolerable strain on the chosen instrument, serving to discredit it.
I agree with that, except for the last line, which seems to imply that if the Conservative Government had not done what they did statutory control would not have been discredited and therefore in some way would be credible. I do not believe that to be true. The problem is the impossibility of reconciling the need to control inflation with the desire of Governments always to spend themselves out of trouble and out of recession.
It is fitting that we should be discussing the matter today, when three days hence the Chancellor of the Exchequer will put forward a further reflationary package, or—if I may translate that into simple language for all to understand—a further dose of inflation on top of what we already have. I do not believe that any hon. Member believes in his heart of hearts that a social contract, a pay board or a prices and incomes commission, whether run by Aubrey Figgures Diamond or whoever, will have the slightest effect. Hon. Members are right, because what causes inflation is the excessive stimulation of the economy by fiscal and monetary means.
Therefore, let us be frank and acknowledge that if we want to curb inflation we must reduce the money supply. We must avoid Monday's extra reflationary package. We must seek to avoid other ways of doing it. In a way we are pretending to ourselves that by passing these laws and by setting out on this path over and over again we have tried to stop inflation. I think that in our heart of hearts all of us know that we shall not curb inflation unless we are prepared to see a rundown in the level of activity and the resulting unemployment which could follow.
I shall be constructive. I shall put forward a policy which might conceivably reduce our rate of inflation. I shall do so in brief outline. First, it seems necessary to isolate the public sector from the private sector. In the private sector I do not believe that any prices and incomes policy is necessary. If the money supply is restricted, firms can pay what increases they can afford. If they are pushed too far, they will go out of existence or they will have to reduce the number of people they employ. That is a discipline both on managers and on employees and trade unions. I think that that would work if it was not for the Secretary of State for Industry trying to shovel the money in at the back end as quickly as employees take it out at the front end. It would be necessary to abandon the policy of rescuing bankrupt companies.
That is all that is necessary to control wages in the private sector. It requires no boards and no civil servants. There would hardly be any need for the right hon. Gentleman. He could go back to his usual charming polemics and not carry the responsibility which he now has on his broad shoulders.
The public sector is very much more difficult. On this matter I must indict the Labour Party. It is its constant desire to add to the public sector—namely, to add to the difficulties. Every time a new industry or a new firm is brought within the public sector, the defence which exists within the private sector is eroded.
In the public sector the Government should have two ideas in mind in trying to work out an incomes policy. The first is that they should seek to ensure that the supply of labour of the right grade is

readily and willingly available for all the businesses and occupations which are within the public sector. If the public sector is short of nurses, miners or railway drivers, the Government, I believe, have a duty to increase their remuneration. The worst thing they can do is to use the public sector as a sort of whipping boy, as an example to the private sector. That they should always forbear to do.
Secondly, the Government will not ultimately be able to control the upward movement of wages in the public sector. They may be able to stop them being too low but they will not have the ability to stop them rising too much. The coal mines and the electricity industry have an open-ended ability to tap the Exchequer. It is a difficult argument but we must accept it. I do not believe that there is a way round it. If there is, it must be through selling coal, electricity or hospital treatment at the true market price and allowing those who would overprice their labour to price themselves out of the market.

Mr. Bob Cryer: The hon. Gentleman is putting forward the jungle argument that represents his section of the Conservative Party. Will he explain how it was that when his own administration achieved a record level of unemployment inflation continued and we did not start to deflate? Does he accept that in our present economy, when we have lost an enormous amount of capital investment and when the amount of production sold has begun to decline, the cost of servicing that capital investment inevitably means that prices must increase and not decrease? We are not in the jungle that the hon. Gentleman describes.

Mr. Ridley: I think that the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends who have taken part in the debate would be in a wages jungle. I congratulate them on their wisdom in wanting to be in that jungle. I must answer the hon. Gentleman's first point first. It was his right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Jenkins) who deflated in 1968 and 1969 and to a small extent in 1970. The resulting deflation and unemployment came through in 1970 and 1971 The moderation in the rise of prices which followed took place in 1971, when the interest in unit output costs dropped from 11 per cent. to 6 per cent. I believe that


if there had been no reflation at that time our rate of inflation might now be as low as 5 per cent. or 6 per cent. It was the reflation of 1971 which brought us to the pitch which we have now reached.
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not take up his second point. Time is short and to take up that point would divert me too much from my argument.
There are difficult tasks to assume in deciding how to deal with public sector pay to keep it in line with pay in the private sector. There is the difficult position in which the Government find themselves as the authority who must control inflation when they are responsible for paying public sector wages. There may be room for a board or advisory committee within the public sector to advise on relationships and to tell the Government when their own incomes policy is conflicting with their duty as an employer. Such a committee should be purely advisory.
I do not believe that there are any modern States which have the machinery to make it possible to control wages in the public sector. No country has been able to do so satisfactorily other than the USSR and other Communist countries in which control is absolute and is enforced by police. I think that the word "policing" which was used by my right hon. Friend the Member for Farnham made clear the truth of what I am trying to say—namely, that it is only by factory police that that sort of iron discipline would be achieved. God save us from that.

Mr. Foot: Hear, hear.

Mr. Ridley: The Secretary of State, who is so kindly saying "Hear, hear", will follow me one tiny step forward if he joins me in thinking that the only ultimate answer is the complete demolition of the public sector and its return to private enterprise.
The funny thing about the speeches from the Government benches has been the extent to which free collective bargaining has been mentioned. Many Labour Members have mentioned those words, and none more than the Secretary of State. I love to hear them. I always love to hear the word "free". Equally, I always love to hear the word "bargaining". I am prepared to let

"collective" go so as to further the rapport between the two sides of the House. If there is to be collective bargaining in wages, may I ask why there is not to be free collective bargaining in prices, dividend payments and interest payments? I ask that by the by.
We must note the fact that the trade unions are determined to go on being capitalist so as to operate in a free market and to indulge in free collective bargaining. In this case we will not stop them by laws, legislation, contract or compact or anything of that sort. We will control those market forces only by erecting market forces which are equally powerful and countervailing in order to contain them.
In the light of this, I do not see quite what rôle the Pay Board can continue to play in the future. If my right hon. Friends were to say that they saw a rôle for it in the arbitration of public sector wages, I would feel much sympathy with that view. If, however, the Pay Board is to be retained in their ideas as the instrument through which statutory control of prices and wages right throughout the economy is to be exercised, I fear that I shall not be able to accompany them into the Lobby tonight.

8.30 p.m.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: It has been a rather strange debate, but that is not unusual for this place. The usual faces have been around. We have just heard another lecture from the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) about his new model mark V or whatever it is. I recall that when I first came here in 1970 he was lounging on the Treasury Bench. Not long after that he was busy rescuing Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, or assisting to do so. It was "To hell with market forces" then.
Of course the hon. Gentleman lost his job, and people change when that happens—or some people do. Now he is back at full circle. When I arrived at the House, in 1970, I was told that the hon. Gentleman was a "market forcer", if that is the right term. He was in the Powell band at the time. He is not really in the Powell band now, of course, because he misses out one important link—not that Mr. Powell himself was always consistent in the matter. I refer, of course, to the Common Market.
Therefore, when the hon. Gentleman gets concerned about inflation and delivers his lecture claiming that all previous speakers in the debate have not gone to the real subject—inflation—I have to inform him that he should now be thinking of doing another U-turn. He should be lining up with his hon. Friends such as the hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen), who has decided not to get involved in this matter today because it would split the Opposition forces into even more fragments.
The hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury, in considering his formula of answers to inflation, should remember what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade said on Monday. My right hon. Friend told the House what some of us already knew, that we were running a trade deficit with our Common Market partners—if "partners" is the right word—of £2,000 million after only a few months' membership. If we are to combat inflation, one of the matters which we have to concern ourselves with at the very beginning is the question of the Common Market, and I am thankful that we are going to provide an opportunity for the British people to decide that argument once and for all.
Therefore, although the hon. Gentleman has some clever ideas about solving the problem of inflation, the fact is that he cannot solve it unless he helps to get off Britain's neck the massive inflationary deficit which is increasing even at the present time as a result of our membership of the Common Market.
Then we were graced with the presence of the right hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. Macmillan). He has been described, I am told, as one of the members of "Dad's Army". A nucleus of Tory ex-Ministers, some of whom have dashed off to the City and some of whom are still awaiting appointments there, have banded together in a kind of Tory grouping to try to suggest euphemistically to their colleagues that one of the ways in which to get rid of the Leader of the Opposition is to talk about having a coalition.
They fear that the Labour Party will form the next Government with an overall majority and, since they have no other weapons at their disposal, they and most of the media and the national Press, with

a few honourable exceptions, are trying to brainwash the British people into believing that the crisis is of such dimensions that it will not be solved unless we get Dad's Army to come along, perhaps with Dad himself.
I listened intently to the observations of the right hon. Member for Farnham. I noticed that for a moment—only a moment—the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Maudling) slunk into the Chamber and parked himself at the very end of it. I imagined for a moment that we were to be delivered of one of those grandiose lectures of his. I notice that he has written another article to The Times. I do not know how much he is paid for them but I have no doubt that it would not fit into phases 1, 2 or 3. However, he was not to do his usual Stint.
Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman and some of the others on the serried ranks of the Opposition benches cannot find it in their hearts to make an outlandish attack upon what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has brought to the House today.
I do not want to spend too much time on the latest acquisition of the Liberal Party. I shall merely say that I do not know what the hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew) is doing tonight. He may vote; it is not a common characteristic of his. If he does, I hope he will bear in mind the election manifesto upon which he fought only four months ago. If anyone should be prosecuted under the Trade Descriptions Act, it is the hon. Member. He fought on a platform of free collective bargaining, the abolition of a prices and incomes policy, renegotiation of the terms of the Common Market entry—[Interruption.] I have no doubt he put out a little slip of paper as his own, as a cover note.
The fact is that the hon. Member for Woolwich, East was not principled enough to stand up and say "I do not accept the Labour Party manifesto that has been drawn up by the National Executive Committee and the Parliamentary Labour Party, and I am delivering my own because it is different here and there in certain respects."
The hon. Member wants the best of all worlds. We have to ask why he did not join the Liberal Party at the time of the last election. There are theories about


that but they do not have a great deal to do with the order that is before us. I am referring also to people who have taken part in this debate, and to some who should have taken part—

Mr. Paul Tyler: rose—

Mr. Skinner: You have had enough trouble today. I am referring to people like the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond), the ex-Leader of the Liberal Party, who is so often telling the workers what to do and voting in Parliament to keep down their wages. At the same time he has a string of directorships behind him.

Mr. Tyler: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that when a Member is elected to the House he is elected by the people of his constituency upon his election address? I am sure that the Secretary of State, who is a noted constitutionalist, would bear me out that a parliamentary candidate puts his proposals before the electorate. In accusing my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew) in this way without warning the hon. Gentleman is doing himself and his party a disservice.

Mr. Skinner: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not be tempted. The conditions in which we are all elected are not for the time being the question before us. We are here, and I suggest that we deal with the order.

Mr. Skinner: I agree, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am not suggesting that you are that good that you ought to get measured for the wig yet.
I have been attacked on a number of occasions in this House and never been notified of what was to be said. But, more important, I do not care. It is time that the hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Tyler) and many more hon. Members in this Chamber understood that changes are taking place. Many of us on these benches are fed up, sick and tired, of some of the silly conventions which exist in this place to protect and give privilege to Members of Parliament when it suits them. Of course it was based on the Eton Debating Society, but it is changing, though perhaps a little slowly. I hope that others will copy me

—certainly they will—in their attitude towards debates in this Chamber.
The operation of the Pay Board and stages 1, 2 and 3 during the last two or three years—not three years, but almost three years—has shown that the lower paid—those who are not as well organized as others—have been hit hardest by this form of incomes policy.
When I spoke to the nurses in Nottingham a few weeks ago at a demonstration, which three or four years ago I could never conceive happening, I had to tell them and their leaders, particularly their leaders, that one reason for their being on the streets that Saturday morning with the radiographers and hospital technicians was that they, above all others of the lower-paid, had been subject to incomes policy after incomes policy and as a result they had gone lower and lower down the scale.
This is one of the most important promises that the Labour Government have kept. They have not kept them all. I do not want to refer to them tonight. But we shall be able to tell the electorate in the ensuing election that this and several other important promises that we gave at the last election have been kept. The people will recognise that we have kept our promises because, throughout the exercise on the last incomes policy, they saw how many people were allowed to escape. Property developers were able to make fortunes. They are now squealing because rents have been frozen for a short period. That is despite the fact that in Committee on the Finance Bill they had an amendment moved by the Tories and the Liberals in concert which- reduced the rate of Mk to be paid from 83 per cent. to 43 per cent. They were not subject to any incomes policy. Neither were a good many other people.
The building societies were never subject to it. They were able, throughout that two-year period, to raise mortgage interest rates from 8½ per cent. to 11 per cent. Why did that happen? Because at the same time as the previous Government were inflicting an incomes policy upon the workers they had a £4,000 million deficit in the 1972 Budget, the net result of which was that interest rates rocketed sky high and local authorities also had to foot the bill. When the ratepayers' representatives ask why rates have


rocketed during the past two years, we should tell them that the Tory Government, in an Act, caused the borrowing rates to rise to 15 per cent., 16 per cent. and even 20 per cent. on occasion for borrowing by local authorities. That is why the people know that these matters relating to an incomes policy must be destroyed once and for all.
They saw the commodity speculators making handful after handful even during the course of the election. They witnessed during the election that whilst they were subject to the pay restraints the four major banks made profits of up to 150 per cent. in some cases. They have also noticed Sir William Armstrong, one of the highest members in the echelons of the establishment, receiving £34,000 to do a little bit of work on -behalf of the Midland Bank, besides receiving £8,000 from the taxpayer through the pension he receives as a result of working as a civil servant for a few years.
The people recognise the hypocrisy of the incomes policy. They recognise that hundreds of thousands of people at the top end of our society have been able to escape. After this long exercise, extending over 20 years or more, they realise at long last that they have had enough.
Not only are we getting rid of this order tonight; we are getting rid of a legacy, which has hung round the neck of the Labour movement for almost two decades. When we have finally got rid of it we can make some changes. That is why this is one of the most important measures we have had to deal with in the short lifetime of this minority Labour Government.
That is why the Opposition do not have the audacity as a combined force to oppose the order tonight. That is why we shall win when the election is called very soon, in the autumn, and when a Labour Government with a full parliamentary majority is returned.

8.47 p.m.

Mr. Douglas Henderson: I am delighted that hon. Members should have the opportunity to hear a Scottish voice tonight, because after the next General Election, when the SNP wins in Scotland, the only place this voice will be heard will be in the Scottish

Parliament, to which you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will always be a distinguished and welcome guest.
I had a slight disappointment at the start of this debate on listening to the speech of the Secretary of State. I listened with great care while he elaborated on the follies of the Conservatives and when he dissected one by one the hon. Members on the Liberal benches. I thought he might have remembered that there were more than two Opposition parties in this House.
Although the Secretary of State did not ask us a question, I will say that our party is opposed to the Pay Board both on practical and on political grounds. We shall be supporting the order which the Secretary of State is putting forward tonight.
It may be that if we were living in a static economy, not subject to outside pressures, with little or no change in technology, and no great increases in living costs, a body such as the Pay Board might be able to operate. But in the situation in which we live the Pay Board has had a malicious and unpleasant effect on the whole future of industry. In the first place it has frozen anomalies existing within companies. Many companies today recognise the need to change wage and salary structures which are totally out of date, and have been prevented from doing so because of the Pay Board.
The second feature is that the system has given virtually no incentive to the improvement of productivity. Under the last phase 3 counter-inflation order the amount available to employees for improvements in productivity is not to exceed 50 per cent. of the increase allowed within the period, which is 31 per cent.
I can say, from my own experience before I entered this House, that I have seen cases where companies and their employees were prepared to co-operate to achieve measures of productivity of 40 per cent., 50 per cent. and more. But they would be restricted to a paltry 3½ per cent. even though there was a willingness and a desire to share the benefits of the increased productivity among the staff. In many areas the restriction has created havoc in industrial relations.
We have spoken before in this House of the Industrial Relations Act and the damage it has done. I would think, however, that the Pay Board runs it a pretty close second in terms of the havoc it has done to industrial relations. There has been much unpleasantness in my constituency where people have been spying on neighbouring companies to see whether they are paying a little over the odds and if necessary, informing.

Mr. Foot: Like the Tory Whips.

Mr. Henderson: It would not do to speculate on the Tory Whips this week.
The question is: could this body ever have worked? If it could have worked it would have required an army of inspectors, one in every factory, permanently watching what was going on. Nowhere has the unfairness of the Pay Code been more apparent than in North-East Scotland, where, with the great developments, there is a rapidly changing economy and where we would be pardoned for imagining that the purpose of the Board was to put existing companies out of business and hand the labour forces over to newcomers, because that is what is happening.
In the building industry established companies -have been compelled to make substantial additional payments to match the money offered by incoming contractors in an attempt to keep their men. Immediately they do that the Pay Board brings the whole of its might and majesty to bear and orders have been served to restrict the payment of higher wages. These firms are prohibited from doing what is natural, to protect the existence of the business. Even a small company in my constituency employing only a handful of people was forced to go through the rigours of the Pay Board and reduce by several pence per hour wages which it was forced to pay to compete with incoming industry.
In the latest Pay Board report, its fifth, covering 1st March to 31st May, there appears the name of AF Engineering, on which the order was served. It is an honour for a firm's name to appear in this document. AF Engineering was ordered to reduce the wages to the men by between £4 and £6 a week, and had it not been apparent that the Pay Board's demise was imminent, that company

would have been forced out of business and the fishing fleet it serviced could have been permanently grounded. I take this opportunity to thank the Secretary of State for Employment for the assistance and consideration he gave in this case when we approached him about it.
What has annoyed us in Scotland even more has been the appalling report on London weighting. I have a letter here from the National Association of Local Government Officers' North-East Scotland branch, which that the feeling in its area is that all the arguments used in favour of a London weighting apply there equally well. The feeling is that the Government believe that, compared to London, North-East Scotland has no right to consideration, and I have heard from other trade unions which are alarmed at the way the board has conducted its report.
The last official figures available show that Scottish household incomes are £3 a week lower than the United Kingdom average and £7 a week lower than the London average before weighting. The cost of living in Scotland is 5 per cent. higher than the United Kingdom average. The people of Scotland are being asked to accept the situation in which London pay is on average £7 higher than theirs before weighting and £15 higher after. In the oil areas our costs are probably 10 per cent. above those in the rest of Scotland and our wages perhaps 10 per cent. below.
We believe Scotland has been a poor relation for far too long, with lower wages and higher costs. Either people are going to have to face up to the fact of over-centralisation in these islands—and perhaps instead of a London weighting there should be a London tax to force the decentralisation—or we are going to find that we shall get demands from all over for similar treatment and similar consideration.
We are not unsympathetic to the cost of living in London. We are certainly aware of it every week when we come here. But it would be extremely wrong for the Government to single out London as the object of special consideration. I hope that when the Minister of State sums up at the end of this debate he will give this proposal very serious and sympathetic consideration and that proper consideration will be given to other areas


of the United Kingdom, and in particular Scotland and areas within Scotland. The North-East, which I have the honour to represent, would feel itself particularly hard done by if we did not get from the Minister of State some assurance of a sympathetic understanding of our problem.
There was a proposal in 1971, in the days of the Conservative Government, that there should be a separate cost of living index for different parts of the United Kingdom. That might form a base for giving us real information on a continuous basis on the costs we have to suffer, just as there is information now on the costs that people in London are suffering. We welcome the Government's early action in implementing their promise to abolish the Pay Board, and hope and expect that people who see it will respond to the Government's initiative in this way. Governments of both parties have attempted to deal with this problem over several years and I believe it would be freely admitted that many mistakes have been made by both parties. No one here can be certain he knows all the answers, although some would have us believe that they do. But the Government are entitled to a chance on this; they are entitled to get support on this order. I hope they will get support throughout the country if they go about it in this constructive way.
If we are to control inflation and do all these other things the Government will need support from board room to shop floor behind this type of approach. They have a big educative job to do—and let it not be under-estimated—to get home to people that it is not the number of pounds in their pocket but the value of the pound note which is the crucial factor. That is very important but it is very difficult to convey, as all of us, in whatever party, who have tried to convey it at public meetings and elsewhere will know. The Government have the machinery at their disposal. We wish them well with this policy, which we will support.

The Deputy Speaker: Before calling the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. Davidson), let me say that if lie is brief I shall be able to call another speaker before the winding-up speech from the Front Bench.

8.59 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Davidson: I am grateful for what you say, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but could you tell me what is "brief" so that I may do my best?

The Deputy Speaker: With pleasure. Eight minutes.

Mr. Davidson: Which is exactly the time I intended to speak. I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Henderson) because at least he has done something unique. He has actually spoken from the benches opposite about the Pay Board. In my naivety I thought this was a debate about the abolition of the Pay Board, and that was what I intended to talk about. There should be no doubt in anybody's mind that when the Conservative Opposition go into the Division Lobby they will be going into the Lobby to keep in existence the Pay Board. That is what they are doing and it is what they intend to do, despite the fact that almost every one of them when they deigned to refer to it said that it had not been a great success.
I shall give an instance in which the Pay Board was absurd and acted not only as an irritant to industrial relations but as a positive humiliation to workers who were subject to the Pay Code. The Pay Code appears to have been drawn up with the deliberate intention of ensuring that those whom it was designed to help are denied that help. Perhaps Opposition Members who support the continuation of the Pay Code will come to my constituency and explain to the workers why they want to perpetuate the monster.
Paragraph 178 of the Counter-Inflation (Price and Pay Code) (No. 2) Order 1973 deals with anomalies. That paragraph, presumably, was meant to help workers who suffered from an anomaly. A group of foremen at the largest factory in my constituency, Piatts International, had always had their wage rates based upon the wages of the shop-floor workers so that the differential was always kept. The employers, the shop-floor workers and the foremen understood the arrangement. Alas, in the middle of negotiations for the annual wage rates, stages 1, 2 and 3 were introduced. The foremen had to fall back on paragraph 178 of the Pay Code. Certain criteria had to be satisfied.
They had to play the delightful game of deciding when an anomaly was not an anomaly. One does not have to prove an anomaly; one has to prove a miracle to come within the terms of the "anomaly" paragraph. One has first to engage in a game which is called "establishing the link". It is necessary to establish that there is a link between the wages of one set of workers and another, although it is known that there is a link. According to paragraph 178, to qualify as an anomaly on the basis of a link the link must have been broken by the standstill. It was broken in this case. Secondly, paragraph 178 provides that but for the standstill the link must have determined the pay of the group concerned. It did that in this case. To satisfy that condition there must be evidence of that link and clear identification of the pay group being followed, and the effect of the link on the pay of the group concerned must have been known, even if not formally agreed, before 6th November 1972 or have been predictable within a narrow range.
I mention paragraph 178 to illustrate its legalistic, rigid and, at the same time, miraculously obscure language which has absolutely no relationship to the day-to-day workings of wage negotiations.
Hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition benches say time and again that we must have respect for law and order. Usually hon. Members who express that opinion have never been and are never likely to be affected by phases 1, 2 and 3 or by paragraph 178 of the Pay Code—

Mr. Fernyhough: Or by the Housing Finance Act.

Mr. Davidson: —yet they are content to draw up legislation in language that invites people to have disrespect for the law because it cannot be understood by anybody, certainly not by those who are supposed to be affected by it. However, Conservative Members will go into the Lobby to support that form of legislation.
At the end of my eight-minute speech, Mr. Deputy Speaker, may I conclude by saying that I have listened time and again to interesting but repetitive economic lectures by Conservative speakers. They said that we had tried the Pay Code and the prices and incomes policy and that it did not work. Then at the

end, in somewhat different language, they said "Let us try something very similar"
It is fascinating to hear the Conservatives. If one suggests something which has not been tried before, something a little different, they call it "Wedgery", "Footery" or "Bennery", or something along those lines. On the one hand the Conservatives suggest that they are not in favour of policies which have been dismally tried and have pathetically failed, but at the same time they seek to replace them by something that is the same but is called by a different name. I call that hypocritical and daft.
I think, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that have lived up to your incantation for Members to make brief speeches—and even Section 178 could not obscure that fact. I am happy to end on that note.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I thank the hon. Member very much.
I call Mr. Raison.

9.7 p.m.

Mr. Timothy Raison: I thank the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. Davidson) for being brief and for giving me the opportunity to make one or two comments.
There is a certain appealing starkness about the way in which the order says:
The Pay Board is hereby abolished".
My right hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior), however, made a persuasive case for saying that, even though there have been weaknesses and drawbacks in the system, the fact remains that we are at the moment faced with such hideous escalations of pay and economic dangers that it would be foolish to throw aside any measure which might help us. I accept that the Pay Board and the counter-inflationary policy have not been all that effective in stopping pay increases and inflation, and a counter-inflationary policy of the stage 3 type has serious drawbacks. It is rigid, it imposes disincentives, it is difficult for management to operate and it can be unfair, but at times like the present we must use any effective weapon that is to hand.
The real case for retaining the Pay Board for the time being is that the Secretary of State has no idea what to offer in its place. He spoke of the social contract. I asked him what the social contract was and, more specifically, whether


the Government were a party to the contract. He produced a remarkably evasive answer. He said that there was no mystery about the social contract. I read in The Times this morning that at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party
Several MPs, including Mr. John Dormand (Easington) and Mr. Charles Loughlin (Gloucestershire, West), said the party should make clear what was meant by the social contract'…".
I understand that the hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Dormand) is a Government Whip, and if Labour Whips do not know what is meant by "social contract" I should like to know how the rest of the population can be expected to understand what is meant by the term. Is it a deal between the Labour Party and the trade unions, or is it a contract between the Government and the unions? The Secretary of State was evasive. I noticed that he at least used the word "contract". There are those who use the word "compact". I am not sure what the word "compact" means. I thought it was something that ladies carried in their handbags and whose contents they used to powder their noses. I support, therefore, that a "compact" is a cosmetic device.
But the Secretary of State referred to a "contract". When one has a contract the implication is that there is an agreement between two sides. Who are the two sides to the agreement? It is rather optimistic to think that it is possible to have an agreement unless there are genuine parties to it. If the Government are one of the parties to the contract—I tried to press the Secretary of State on this, but I drew no meaningful response from him—very important constitutional questions are raised. I believe profoundly that the Government must never negotiate as an equal with any other party in the land. If they do, they deny the whole basis of parliamentary democracy.
A few days ago I was reading the Second Reading speech of Aneurin Bevan on the National Health Service Bill looking for quotations, which proved remarkably useful, on the subject of pay beds in the private sector. My eye fell on these words:
The House of Commons is supreme, and the House of Commons must assert its sup-

remacy, and not allow itself to be dictated to by anybody, no matter how powerful and how strong he may be.
Interestingly enough, at that point Sir Henry Morris-Jones rose and said:
Would the right hon. Gentleman apply that doctrine to the Miners' Federation?
Aneurin Bevan's reply was
Certainly."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th April 1946; Vol. 422, c. 60–1.]
That raises a very important issue. We are expected to depend on a social contract, yet we are never to be told between whom this contract has been agreed.
The crucial thing that we have to do today is not to worry about this contract. We ought not even to worry too much about boards and other organisations. We need to work out across the Floor of the House what kind of policy we wish to apply to counter inflation.
Over the past year or two—I am afraid that the fault lies to some extent with the Conservative Party—we have seen a transfer of power away from Parliament into industry. We ourselves make mistakes at times in being too prepared to negotiate with industry. We may have made mistakes in playing down the importance of the Parliamentary Labour Party as the representatives of the Labour movement and in playing up the importance of the TUC. Those mistakes can be laid in part at our door. But I hope that over the next few years, whichever party is in power, we shall manage to reassert the supremacy of Parliament in these matters.
What kind of policy ought we to try to agree across the Floor of the House? I think that we must agree so far as we can that we cannot for ever go on fuelling inflation with more and more bogus money. The point was made with great eloquence by my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley). My approach in these matters is different from his. He likes saving money. I like spending it. Nevertheless we have to accept the truth of what he said.
Secondly, we have to refuse to bail out the nationalised industries again and again. Unless we impose some discipline on the nationalised industries, we shall be at the mercy of relatively small numbers of tough people.
Thirdly, if we accept what I have said and if we accept these policies, we have


to thrash out in this House how we are to make sure that the sacrifices which result can be fairly borne. I recognise that if we adopt these policies there will be some increase in unemployment. I recognise that some poor people will be hard hit. Therefore, we have an overwhelming moral responsibility to do all that we can to alleviate these hardships and recognise that unemployment is a very serious scourge. I do not belong to the school of thought which says that it does not matter. It matters desperately. But the first priority must be to get rid of inflation, and we have to subject everything to that.
We have also to look at the balance of power as it exists today within free collective bargaining, which I would like to see restored. I believe, like my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury, in free collective bargaining. It is greatly preferable to statutory policies of control. But if we have free collective bargaining we must ensure that it is a genuine form of bargaining rather than one which is too often shackled or which dips too far in one direction.
I believe that the talk of a social con-tract is mythical. We can solve the desperately difficult problems facing us, but the place to do this is in the House of Commons, not outside.

9.15 p.m.

Sir Keith Joseph: Considering the inflammability of the subject, the debate has been temperate. My hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) stated a coherent case forcefully and cogently, and the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), from both standing and sedentary positions, has made a number of trenchant comments.
Passions in the extreme are aroused by an incomes policy. Some people pin exaggerated, almost mystical, hopes on it while some regard it as economic nonsense misguided if not mischievous and perverse.
But we are considering the relatively narrow issue of whether this is the time to abolish a mechanism which, as I hope to argue, can for certain limited purposes and under certain conditions be useful.
The prospects for the people of this country at the moment are worrying. In

flation is running at a high level and there is a wage explosion looming ahead far greater than any conceivable increase in output.
Whether it be from wage earners, salary earners or self-employed, it is entirely natural that there should be a desire to preserve their standards of living and that they should want a net increase at least equal to prospective price increases, with a safety margin and, if possible, an improvement in real terms. Nothing could be more natural. Unfortunately, however, this entirely natural wish, when translated into action, does not necessarily produce the desired results.
If the Government of the day submit to pressures to print money to cover wage claims, then, as we all agree, inflation accelerates. If on the other hand the Government do not print money to cover wage claims, unemployment will rise. We all agree about that as well. We shall therefore face in the autumn wage claims which will lead either to accelerated inflation or to an increase in unemployment if the claims go ahead as at present seems probable.
The House is entitled to ask what is the Government's remedy. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison) has reminded us, the remedy has an element of the cosmetic. It is the social contract. There is a mystery surrounding this. Some people say it exists, some say it does not.
I have read again and again the TUC's letter, and there is much in it with which one can strongly agree. I wish to assume for the purpose of the argument that the TUC deserves complete credit and wants to do its best for its members, the country and the Government of the day. I will assume that that is its wholehearted intention. After all the relatively firm things that are said in the TUC document, one part states:
priority should be given to negotiating agreements which will have beneficial effects on unit costs and efficiency, to reforming pay structures, and to improving job security".
Those are all admirable objectives, yet they amount to a licence to write a blank cheque.
The TUC—assuming that it meant well in terms of the national interests and the interests of its members and the Government—has not laid down any stringent


framework within which wages should be negotiated. It has laid down a relatively loose framework within which any union will later find ample excuse to make a special case for its own members.
I do not wish to imply that the Secretary of State is not worried by the prospect which lies ahead. He referred in his speech with evident anxiety to the implications of the wage situation this autumn. But when one listened to his speech to discover what the Government proposed to do about it, one learned nothing. There was a hopeful reference to the new Royal Commission that the Government will set up, but surely not even the right hon. Gentleman would expect that such a commission, which will not be in action yet, could have any effect on the prospects by the end of this year.
I have ransacked the relevant classics to try to guess what is in the right hon. Gentleman's mind and I have stumbled on a relevant document called "The Hunting of the Snark" I see in the right hon. Gentleman a distinct resemblance to a respected and revered character in that story—the Bellman. The House will remember—

Mr. Foot: 'Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!
But we've got our brave captain to thank' (So the crew would protest) 'that he's bought us the best—
A perfect and absolute blank!' ".

Sir K. Joseph: The right hon. Gentleman is denying himself and the House the pleasure of a little praise. My quotation says:
The Bellman himself they all praised to the skies—
Such a carriage, such ease and such grace! Such solemnity too! One could see he was wise,
The moment one looked into his face!
He had bought a large map representing the sea,
Without the least vestige of land:
And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be
A map they could all understand"—

Mr. Foot: This was charming, no doubt: but they shortly found out
That the Captain they trusted so well
Had only one notion for crossing the ocean,
And that was to tingle his bell.

Hon. Members: Order!

Hon. Members: Encore!

Sir K. Joseph: The right hon. Gentleman will perhaps also be aware of the next reference that I shall make. It might have been of the social contract itself that Sam Goldwyn said:
A verbal contract is not worth the paper it is written on.
Labour has no specific incomes policy at all and is proud of it. The right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues boast of it.
The question which the House, particularly this side of the House and my right hon. and hon. Friends, has to ask is to what extent an incomes policy is practicable. My right hon. and hon. Friends and I have tried to learn the lessons of the past. I listened carefully to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Farnham (Mr. Macmillan) who put as good a case as could be put for the general argument for pay policy.
What I want to suggest is that what matters in considering this question—far more important than mechanism—is whether or not there is excess demand in the economy. If there is no excess demand in the economy, if demand and supply are roughly in balance, there is no need for an incomes policy. I agree with some of the arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury—

Mr. Foot: We know you do.

Sir K. Joseph: Let us consider the position, however, if there is excess demand, as there has been most of the time since the war, and suppose that there is a sustained incomes policy in a condition—[Interruption.] I hope that I may be allowed to develop my argument. Suppose that this sustained incomes policy succeeds in persuading some groups of workers to claim less than they could obtain. That is a policy which would appear to be effective. But what happens? I speak not just from theory but from the lessons of the past. The inflation resulting from the excess demand is simply squeezed from one part of the economy where the control is persuasive to other parts where the persuasion is less effective.
We all know which parts of the economy they are into which the inflation is squeezed. They are the sectors in which labour is just not amenable to that sort of persuasion—the building sites, the secretaries, the self-employed. They are the sections of the economy like land, housing, antiques and pictures, which again are not subject to any control. This is also a method of moving—not that it has been in the least effective in the last few years—resources from earnings towards profit. That has not happened, but it could happen.
Where there is excess demand, it cannot be eliminated at all. It can only be moved from one part of the economy to another. It is no good blaming speculators, landowners, secretaries, building workers or the "lump" for what happens when there is excess demand in the economy.
Those who suffer from excess demand in the economy, which we have had practically without cease since the war, are the people of this country, particularly the poor people, since the standard of living of the country as a whole is lower than it would otherwise have been. I think that the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith) will agree on that. We all share humiliation at the fact that so much poverty still exists in this society.
The results of a part-suppressed inflation can be great bitterness and great resentment. No Government of a free society can, even if they want to, control all earnings or all aspects of the economy. Therefore, if and while an excess demand exists, all the miseries and pains of incomes policies do not abate inflation.
I think that we are all, on both sides of the House, veterans of the perennial and unsuccessful effort to quell inflation during times of broadly excess demand. Look at all the White Papers that I have collected setting out from Government after Government efforts to abate inflation in conditions of excess demand. What has been the result? The National Board for Prices and Incomes claimed only a 1 per cent. diminution of inflation, and most people would not agree even with that.
Professor Laidler said to a Select Committee on 26th June this year:
Prices and incomes policy has not, since the days of Stafford Cripps, had any measurable effect on the rate of inflation in this country,

except for some very short periods. That has been well established.
We on the Opposition side of the House are the greatest living experts on the limitations and disadvantages of an incomes policy. We renounced incomes policy from 1966 to 1970. We renounced it in our 1970 manifesto. [An HON. MEMBER: "A U-turn in 1971."] I shall not conceal any of the obvious facts. Perhaps, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you will reassure hon. Members that I do not want to conceal the awkward facts.
In office the entire Conservative Cabinet, with the best intentions, came to believe that, despite all we had said and believed, a pay policy and a prices policy would be less awful than the alternatives as we saw them at the time. We came to regard them as lesser evils. The experience confirmed our awareness of the limits and the miseries. I need only briefly catalogue the limitations and miseries—either too much rigidity, with one set of resentments, or too much flexibility, with another set; anomalies, delays, bureaucracy, distortions and shortages. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Labour Members have been through this themselves. They imposed it on their own colleagues in the factories and the shops for several bitter years. We on the Opposition side of the House are more magnanimous in admitting mistakes and not always being so sanctimonious and self-righteous.
We are aware of the stimulus to militancy, the opportunity for mischief-makers, the compression of differentials, ceilings on managers, the pent-up demands at the end of each stage, the maxima that become minima, and the norm that everyone expects. It can even be that an incomes policy can be perverse and encourage people to claim more than they would have expected. Moreover, about half the earnings in this country are not the subject of national negotiation at all but are the subject of plant bargainings. In any event, as Sir Frank Figgures has reported, pay control cannot be -applied to building sites and many other groups and can be avoided or evaded by others.
For a sober appraisal of the problems and miseries of incomes policy, I recommend to anyone interested the document produced by Sir Richard Clarke, or the piece by Sir Alex Cairncross in the "Three Banks Review" for 1973. From


these we learn the lessons of income policy if there is excess demand in the economy.
However, as I shall seek to show with complete conviction on my part, there are at least two areas in which a Pay Board and a pay policy can play a fruitful part. I come not to bury Czsar—the Pay Board—and not particularly to praise him. I come to make a case, taking into account the lessons of the past, for the survival of the Pay Board, although with a totally different code from that which was in action before.

Mr. Atkinson: rose—

Sir K. Joseph: Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to develop the case?

Mr. Atkinson: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) knows that if the right hon. Gentleman does not give way he must sit down. Both Front Benches agreed to take less time to allow back benchers to speak.

Mr. Atkinson: rose—

Sir K. Joseph: I was giving way to the hon. Gentleman as you rose, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Atkinson: We have heard that the Liberal Party is in favour of the return of a statutory incomes policy. Is the right hon. Gentleman now going to make a case in support of the Conservatives being open advocates of a statutory incomes policy?

Sir K. Joseph: I am well over halfway through my speech, but I will not omit that part.
I should not like it to be thought that only pay policy has sharp limitations. The Labour Government are finding the disadvantages of their cherished price controls, which are proving a two-edged weapon, eroding confidence, damaging investment and threatening the profits on which jobs depend. I reckon that the present Government have a different view about the implications of prices policy than they had six months ago They may even be wondering whether their panacea of dividend control is all that hot, bearing in mind the effect on occupational pensions.
But I return to the Pay Board and the order. The board on its own is lifeless. Only a code gives it life and functions. The code that we should have in mind as a reserve possibility could provide that the board should be only investigatory and informative. Two specific areas for helpful activity, with no element of sanctions, constraint or power to order, seem to me to justify abundantly, even if there is no more purpose in the Pay Board, the rejection of the order.
I agree very strongly with one of the points made by the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) reinforced by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Boardman). They both said that on the whole the Government were bad employers, and they gave reasons. In proportion to their labour force, the Government are the largest employer of the low paid. So overloaded with tasks that they should not be carrying out have successive Governments allowed themselves to become that they have not been able to carry out their prime duty of treating their own employees properly. A Pay Board with an apt code could help the Government to be a better employer. It could use techniques of comparability and relativities to help the Government to do better for their own employees, especially where they are the monopoly employer.
But I come to the second example, which I believe is much more important. The House will agree that in dealing with pay or prices the climate of opinion is very important. It can alter the expectations and desires of whole groups of citizens. The climate of opinion is volatile but potent. I have argued that if there is excess demand in the economy pay policies will not abate inflation but will simply move it. Let us suppose that excess demand is reduced until we have a broadly thriving but not overloaded economy. In this context, excessive wage claims would price people out of jobs. A Pay Board with a suitable code could help to create a climate of opinion such that unions would recognise that wage claims above a certain level would jeopardise jobs. That would lead to enlightened, moderated self-interest.
The time when supply and demand may be more in balance with each other may be upon us relatively soon—within the next year or so. Under the pressure of


the realities of balance of payments constraints and inflation, perhaps supply and demand will be brought more into balance for a longer period than this country has enjoyed since the war. In that context, excessive wage claims intended, at a time of falling or, at best, static national real income, to preserve or even improve upon the full real value of earnings will price people out of work. Is this the time to abolish a mechanism which could encourage intelligent self-protective moderation?
The Government will reply, I know, that they plan to set up a new body, but why destroy a perfectly good body—admittedly it is second-hand although it has had only one user—which already exists? If it did not exist it would have to be invented, and the Secretary of State has invented a substitute. By suppressing one body and starting another he has to compensate some staff and recruit new staff, he has to find a new office, he has to buy new carpets and spend a lot of public money on a cosmetic operation. The prospects are too serious for that.
Lewis Carroll had the lesson for us once again. A wage explosion can accelerate inflation and lead to an Italian situation. In that situation wage claims are not the innocent toys that the right hon. Gentleman once imagined. Maybe he is dealing with not a Snark but a Boojam. It will be new carpets not for the commission but for the occupant of No. 10. The right hon. Gentleman will be aware of the last verse of "The Hunting of the Snark":
In the midst of the word he was trying to say,
In the midst of his laughter and glee, He had softly and suddenly vanished away—
For the Snark was a Boojum you see.
I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends will recognise both the limitations and the use of the Pay Board, and will vote to keep this potential modestly useful mechanism in existence.

9.36 p.m.

The Minister of State, Department of Employment (Mr. Albert Booth): It was to be hoped that we would have heard an indication from those who are opposed to the order of the alternative which they see as being the proper way in which to conduct our affairs relating to wages, conditions and productivity agreements. In fact, no alternative has been put forward

by those who are opposed to ending statutory wage controls.
Fears have been expressed. There have been doubts about the validity of, or the possibility of operating, the social contract. I have listened with great care for the alternative, for the counter-proposal. The only original thing that I have heard is a suggestion that instead of abolishing the Pay Board we should put it on the shelf, keep it handy in case it may be needed again. I can think of no course which would be more likely to render the chances of the Government's alternative not working than that suggestion. I believe it was the right hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior) who said that we need to keep every weapon in the armoury. I admit that I am not very good at military analogies or analogies involving the use of weapons. If I had to try to pick one to meet the suggestion of putting the Pay Board on the shelf I would say that it is more like having the Sword of Damocles hanging over negotiators for the future than an alternative to our policy.
I am certain that those who are now negotiating in industry are not likely to negotiate with a view to having a sensible long-term process of free negotiation if they think that the Government have the Pay Board waiting on the shelf for use at some early future date. We must make clear in this debate, if nothing else, that the Government have no intention of keeping the Pay Board in reserve. The Government have no intention of keeping its powers, and we shall not do a con trick on the British public by saying that we are abolishing the board without abolishing it. If Conservative hon. Members had believed that the board should not be abolished but kept in existence—possibly under cover or kept ticking over—so as to be ready for future use, they had a course open to them which they could have used. They could have tabled an amendment to the Prices Bill which would have made that possible. But it is not open to the House to decide on that issue tonight because the issue under discussion is only that of power to abolish.
The Opposition, having failed to use their opportunity on the Prices Bill, cannot now logically expect the House to believe that they are seriously proposing to put the Pay Board on the shelf only to bring it down again. Indeed, there


was no power in the Conservative Government's 1973 Act for the abolition of the Pay Board, so presumably they intended that it should remain permanently in existence. The only power they provided under the Act was the power to take away the statutory backing for the board, but only in circumstances where the statutory backing for the prices policy was also taken away. That course has not been open to us.
I have listened with careful interest to the concern expressed about the low paid, in which I have a particular interest. If I believed that the existence of the Pay Board and the Pay Code has made any effective contribution to the solution of the problem of the low paid, I would take a different view about the proposition to abolish the board. When this matter was previously debated, it was argued that protection for the low paid existed as a result of the provision for threshold payments. I have examined one sector of low pay to see how far it has benefited from the existence of provision for threshold payments. It is the area covered by the wages councils.
Wages councils cover a very large number of very low paid people. There are 50 of them. Only six have made any provision for threshold payments; another 25 are in various stages of consideration. Those who know wages council machinery know that such consideration can be a very long process. The 19 remaining wages councils are not yet even considering threshold payments. It may be that there is no prospect of any improvement coming about for their workers as a result of threshold payments and the operation of the Pay Board machinery.
But the operation of the Pay Board has had a very important effect upon wages councils. I ask the House to consider the position of those who rely for their wages protection on the Licensed Residential Establishments and Licensed Restaurants Wages Council Order—an important order which covers 31 groups of workers, including certain firemen, stokers, window-cleaners and clerks. Their wages for a 40-hour week range from £17·93 for the highest paid to £10·46 for the lowest paid. But they do not all receive that money; some have deductions made because they are on an

hourly rate or they have meals or lodgings in the establishment.
The wages council reached agreement upon these magnificent rates on 3rd May 1973 but they were not put into effect until 4th February 1974. The reason for the delay was that the wages council failed to secure the approval of the Pay Board for implementation of the rates at that level over that period of time. So, whatever other merits the Pay Board and Pay Code machinery may have possessed, it cannot be argued that it has benefited those low-paid workers who come within wages council machinery.

Mr. Fernyhough: My hon. Friend will remember the case of the laundry workers, whose wages are comparable with the pay of those workers whom he has listed. The Pay Board forced the laundry workers' employers to reduce wages by lop a week.

Mr. Booth: That is an appropriate example. It is undoubtedly the case that if wages councils are to proceed to improve the rates of pay of those who rely upon them—I have the greatest doubts whether this is the best way to proceed with the problem of low pay—they will not be helped if this order is defeated.
The right hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. Macmillan) also told us that the Government should be concentrating on the need to produce more rather than ending statutory wage control.

Mr. Prior: Will the hon. Gentleman address himself to this point? He has been talking about wages council employees, the laundry workers and so on. Anyone might think from what he has said that these people had suffered only in the past 18 months. They have been low paid for 25 years, during which time there has been free collective bargaining. He must understand that the operation of the Pay Code would have improved the position of these workers relative to other workers. The imposition of a free-for-all will mean that their position will deteriorate because they do not have strong unions representing them.

Mr. Booth: I do not seem to have made my point clear. What I seek to demonstrate is that the operation of the Pay Board and the Pay Code combined


with the operation of wages council procedure has delayed payment to the lower-paid workers. In the case I mentioned, instead of waiting a year for the wage increase—which would have been normal under wage council machinery—workers waited for 20 months before getting an increase. I am not contending that the problem of low pay for wages council workers arose as a result of action taken by a Conservative Government or because of the Counter-Inflation Act. What I am saying is that the way in which the Act has impinged upon the work of wages councils has made the plight of low-paid workers worse than it would otherwise have been.
We have been urged by the right hon. Member for Farnham to consider the need to produce more at the same time as we consider the abolition of the Pay Board and the ending of statutory wage control. It seems appropriate to draw to the attention of the House the fact that the operation of the Pay Board and the Pay Code has in many cases had a detrimental effect upon production.
I have in mind the case of employers' and trades union representatives who came to No. 8 St. James's Square to tell us that the canning factory which they operated had been unable in recent months to use 44 per cent. of its capacity because they had not been able to put up wages, as employers and unions wished, to meet competition from a new industry in the area.
This was a direct result of the operation of the Pay Board working to the Pay Code as it was obliged to do.
We had another instance involving representatives of a paper-making factory. The management pointed out to us that it had reached a perfectly good and valid productivity agreement with the unions. The Pay Board held that the agreement which had been signed with the workers did not qualify under the code. So much trouble arose from that decision that the management thought it would be impossible to continue at a reasonable rate of production unless the Pay Board decision could be set aside.
We have also had the example of English China Clay. There was a very good agreement between the unions and the management. It was so good that by working it well the entire position of the company could have been transformed.

Higher production and increased profits were possible. But the Pay Board, on having the position put to it, ruled that an increase could not be paid according to the agreement.
The right hon. Gentleman said that a contract such as the social contract may be worth nothing. He said that an agreement which is not signed, sealed and delivered is of no value. I suggest that he should examine the agreement that was made between the trade union representatives and the management of English China Cay. It was not worth a jot to the Pay Board, but its effect in that company was such that it transformed what was a poor prospect into one of high production and profit making.
The real bargains struck by negotiators in industry might not be understood by the Pay Board or by some hon. Members who like to approach matters in a realistic way, but they are real bargains. The test whether they are real bargains is not words on a piece of paper but the results that flow from them.
The Pay Board was not allowed to apply that test to the Hull freezer trawlermen. As a result of a Pay Board decision, the Hull freezer trawlermen were in receipt of wages much lower than fresh-fish trawlermen from the same port. They were not allowed to adjust an agreement that they had made to take account of a change in circumstances. In consequence a lot of freezer trawlers lay idle, and, had we not stepped in, the price of fish would have escalated even more. Therefore, it cannot be held that the operation of the Pay Board has done anything to improve the prospects of production. I contend that it has stood in the way.
The hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith) asked what would happen to the staff of the Pay Board. Most of them are established civil servants on secondment, and arrangements are being made for their transfer back to Civil Service posts. Similar arrangements for the termination of contracts are being made with the Pay Board's contract staff as were agreed with the CIR staff. Article 6(2) of the draft order transfers to the Secretary of State for Employment what would have been the liabilities of the Pay Board to its officers and servants if the hoard had not been abolished, other than liabilities for pensions, allowances and gratuities which are transferred under


Article 6(7) to the Paymaster-General. Some of the staff who are being transferred will service the inquiry into the pay and conditions of teaches and nurses, so their expertise will not be wasted.
The hon. Member for South Angus (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) in an interjection asked what, on the passing of the order, would be the position of firms against which restraint orders had been issued by the Pay Board. Given the approval of the order tonight, since there has been affirmation in another place the Secretary of State will be able to sign it and in seven days' time it will become effective. On its becoming effective there will be no continuation of any cases currently before the Pay Board. The responsibility for completing the negotiations, the outcome of which were put to the board, will return to those who have been negotiating between employer and employee. There will be no continuation provision for considerations which lay with the board under the pay code.
The hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Henderson) asked whether we had considered the problems of North-East Scotland arising from the abolition of the board. We have given considerable thought to this matter. We are aware of the problems not only of the canning industry but of the shipbuilding industry there. Much as we would have liked, by use of a consent procedure, to go some way towards a solution of the problems, it has not been possible to do so. The problems, although intense in that area, are not peculiar to it. We could not in equity have given consents in those instances without providing consents in a large number of other cases.
The operation of the Pay Board has produced in many areas where it is operated a very strong sense of injustice, which stems from the sense of being cheated, which was felt by the many men and women in this country who, having entered into productivity and other bargains with the managements, and having delivered their part of the bargain, were told by the Pay Board that the management could not keep its part of the bargain. Examples of that kind have been put before the House during this debate.
There is another sense of unfairness which has been brought about by the operation of the Pay Board. I take the

example given by my hon. Friend the Member for Accrington (Mr. Davidson) of the unfairness which was created between one group of workers and another in the same plant as a result of the operation of the Pay Board. This form of unfairness does nothing to make for better operation within the industry of this country.

Mr. Arthur Davidson: Does my hon. Friend realise that, as a result of that unfairness, supervisors are receiving less than the men they are supervising. That comes about as direct result of the nonsense of the Pay Board.

Mr. Booth: I accept fully that this was the result in a particular case. The House should understand that this was not a peculiar case. There have been many instances all over the country where as a result of productivity agreements made prior to November 1972 the production workers' wages have continued to rise while the pay of those who supervise them was tied by the Pay Board. It is obviously the case, where production workers' wages overtook those of the foremen and chargehands, that the gravest sense of injustice was created. It was very hard, if not impossible, for management to recruit supervisers and foremen in these circumstances.
Hon. Members on both sides have since March drawn the attention of the Secretary of State and myself to the very many problems that have been thrown up in constituencies in all parts of the United Kingdom. Therefore, if we have not been made conscious by direct approaches to us by trade unionists and employers, certainly hon. Members of this House can claim to have done their duty by leaving us in no doubt as to the sort of problems being created.
I am thinking of the way in which I was beseeched by my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Mr. Newens) concerning the problems experienced by the shop workers organised by USDAW. I think of the case raised with me most persuasively by my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer). I also have very much in mind, as have a number of hon. Members opposite, very forcibly the problems that arose in their constituencies as a result of this problem. Some hon. Members merely passed the problem on,


to draw our attention to it. Others urged us to use the consent procedure, or other weapons to our hand, in order to solve these problems. They urged the use of consent. In many cases, to have given a consent would have created a ground which would have been so widely applicable as to have required consents to be issued like confetti. We might have had to duplicate them in the circumstances of our present difficulties.
The former statutory wage control being abolished tonight has proved unjust in its operation between one group of workers and another. It has done no

thing to solve the problem of high and low rates of pay. The House of Commons can tonight return the responsibility to those who will negotiate in future. Hon. Members opposite can doubt whether the unions will co-operate. But one thing is certain: they cannot cooperate unless this House frees them to do so and to act in the spirit of a whole series of proposals which together form the social contract.

Question put:—

The House divided: Ayes 310, Noes 277.

Division No. 92.]
AYES
[10.0 p.m.


Abse, Leo
Davies, Denzil (Llanelli)
Hattersley, Roy


Allaun, Frank
Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Hatton, Frank


Archer, Peter
Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)
Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis


Armstrong, Ernest
Deakins, Eric
Heffer, Eric S.


Ashley, Jack
Dean, Joseph (Leeds, W.)
Henderson, Douglas (Ab'rd'nsh're, E)


Ashton, Joe
de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey
Hooley, Frank


Atkins, Ronald
Delargy, Hugh
Hooson, Emlyn


Atkinson, Norman
Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund
Horam, John


Bagier, Gordon, A. T.
Dempsey, James
Howell, Denis (B'ham, Small Heath)


Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Doig, Peter
Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)


Barnett, Joel (Heywood &amp; Royton)
Dormand, J. D.
Huckfield, Leslie


Bates, Alf
Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)


Baxter, William
Duffy, A. E. P
Hughes, Mark (Durham)


Beith, A. J.
Dunn, James A.
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, North)


Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood
Dunnett, Jack
Hughes, Roy (Newport)


Bennett, Andrew F. (Stockport, N.)
Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth
Hunter, Adam


Bidwell, Sydney
Eadie, Alex
Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir A. (L'p'l, EdgeHI)


Bishop, E. S.
Edelman, Maurice
Irving, Rt. Hn. Sydney (Dartford)


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Edge, Geoff
Jackson, Colin


Boardman, H.
Edwards, Robert (W'hampton, S.E.)
Janner, Greville


Booth, Albert
Ellis, John (Brigg &amp; Scunthorpe)
Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas


Boothroyd, Miss Betty
Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)
Jeger, Mrs. Lena


Bottomley, Rt. Hon. Arthur
English, Michael
Jenkins, Hugh (W'worth, Putney)


Boyden, James (Bishop Auckland)
Ennals, David
Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (B'ham, St'fd)


Bradley, Tom
Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)
John, Brynmor


Broughton, Sir Alfred
Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)
Johnson, James (K'ston upon Hull, W)


Brown, Bob (Newcastle upon Tyne, W.)
Ewing, Harry (St'ling, F'kirk &amp; G'm'th)
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)


Brown, Hugh D. (Glasgow, Provan)
Ewing, Mrs.Winifred (Moray &amp; Nairn)
Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)


Brown, Ronald (H'kney, S. &amp; Sh'ditch)
Faulds, Andrew
Jones, Dan (Burnley)


Buchan, Norman
Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E.
Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)


Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Springb'rn
Fitch, Alan (Wigan)
Jones, Alec (Rhondda)


Butler, Mrs. Joyce (H'gey, WoodGreen)
Flannery, Martin
Judd, Frank


Callaghan, Jim (M'dd'ton &amp; Pr'wch)
Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)
Kaufman, Gerald


Campbell, Ian
Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Kelley, Richard


Cant, R. B.
Foot, Rt. Hn. Michael
Kerr, Russell


Carmichael, Neil
Ford, Ben
Kilroy-Silk, Robert


Carson, John
Forrester, John
Kinnock, Neil


Carter, Ray
Fowler, Gerry (The Wrekin)
Lambie, David


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)
Lamborn, Harry


Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara
Freeson, Reginald
Lamond, James


Clemitson, Ivor
Freud, Clement
Latham, Arthur (City of W'minster P'ton)


Cocks, Michael
Galpern, Sir Myer
Lawson, George (Motherwell &amp; Wishaw)


Cohen, Stanley
Garrett, John (Norwich, S.)
Leadbitter, Ted


Coleman, Donald
Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)
Lee, John


Colquhoun, Mrs. M. N
George, Bruce
Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton &amp; Slough)


Concannon, J. D.
Gilbert, Dr. John
Lever, Rt. Hn. Harold


Conlan, Bernard
Ginsburg, David
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)


Cook, Robert F. (Edinburgh, C.)
Gourlay, Harry
Lipton, Marcus


Cox, Thomas
Graham, Ted
Loughlin, Charles


Craig, Rt. Hn. William (Belfast, E.)
Grant, George (Morpeth)
Loyden, Eddie


Craigen, J. M. (G'gow, Maryhill)
Grant, John (Islington, C.)
Lyons, Edward (Bradford, W.)


Crawshaw, Richard
Griffiths, Eddie (Sheffield, Brightside)
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson


Cronin, John
Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.
McCartney, Hugh


Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
MacCormack, Iain


Cryer, G. R.
Hamilton, William (Fife, C.)
McCusker, H.


Cunningham, G.(Isl'ngt'n, S &amp; F'sb'ry)
Hamling, William
McElhone, Frank


Cunningham, Dr. John A. (Whiteh'v'n)
Hardy, Peter
MacFarquhar, Roderick


Dalyell, Tam
Harper, Joseph
McGuire, Michael


Davidson, Arthur
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Mackenzie, Gregor


Davies, Bryan (Enfield, N.)
Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith
Maclennan, Robert




McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)
Prescott, John
Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley


McNamara, Kevin
Price, Christopher (Lewisham, W.)
Swain, Thomas


Madden, M. O. F.
Price, William (Rugby)
Thomas, D. E. (Merioneth)


Magee, Bryan
Radice, Giles
Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)


Mahon, Simon
Rees, Rt. Hn. Merlyn (Leeds, S.)
Thorne, Stan (Preston, S.)


Mallalieu, J. P. W.
Reid, George
Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy


Marks, Kenneth
Richardson, Miss Jo
Tierney, Sydney


Marquand, David
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Tinn, James


Marshall, Dr. Edmund (Goole)
Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)
Tomlinson, John


Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy
Robertson, John (Paisley)
Tomney, Frank


Mayhew, Christopher (G'wh, W'wch, E)
Roderick, Caerwyn E.
Torney, Tom


Meacher, Michael
Rodgers, George (Chorley)
Tuck, Raphael


Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert
Rodgers, William (Teesside, St'ckton)
Tyler, Paul


Mendelson, John
Rooker, J. W.
Urwin, T. W.


Mikardo, Ian
Roper, John
Varley, Rt. Hn. Eric G.


Millan, Bruce
Rose, Paul B.
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)


Miller, Dr. M. S. (E. Kilbride)
Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)
Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)


Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen)
Rowlands, Edward
Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, Ladywood)


Molloy, William
Sandelson, Neville
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Moonman, Eric
Sedgemore, Bryan
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)


Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Selby, Harry
Watkins, David


Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)
Shaw, Arnold (Redbridge, Ilford, S.)
Weitzman, David


Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)
Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)
Wellbeloved, James


Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (S'pney &amp; P'plar)
White, James


Murray. Ronald King
Short, Rt. Hn. E. (N'ctle-u-Tyne)
Whitehead, Phillip


Newens, Stanley (Harlow)
Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (L'sham, D'ford)
Whitlock, William


Oakes, Gordon
Silkin, Rt. Hn. S. C. (S'hwark, Dulwich)
Wigley, Dafydd (Caernarvon)


Ogden, Eric
Sillars, James
Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick


O'Halloran, Michael
Silverman, Julius
Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)


O'Malley, Brian
Skinner, Dennis
Williams, Rt. Hn. Shirley(H 'f' d &amp; St'ge)


Orbach, Maurice
Small, William
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Ovenden, John
Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)
Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)


Owen, Dr. David
Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)
Wilson, Gordon (Dundee, E.)


Padley, Walter
Snape, Peter
Wilson, William (Coventry, S.E.)


Palmer, Arthur
Spearing, Nigel
Winstanley, Dr. Michael


Pardoe, John
Spriggs, Leslie
Wise, Mrs. Audrey


Park, George (Coventry N.E.)
Stallard, A. W.
Woodall, Alec


Parker, John (Dagenham)
Steel, David
Woof, Robert


Parry, Robert
Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Pavitt, Laurie
Stewart, Rt. Hn. M. (H'sth, Fulh'm)
Young, David (Bolton, E.)


Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred
Stoddart, David (Swindon)



Pendry, Tom
Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Perry, Ernest G.
Stott, Roger
Mr. John Golding and


Phipps, Dr. Colin
Strang, Gavin
Mr. Walter Johnson.


Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg
Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.





NOES


Adley, Robert
Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
Farr, John


Aitken, Jonathan
Carlisle, Mark
Fell, Anthony


Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)
Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert
Fenner, Mrs. Peggy


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Chalker, Mrs. Lynda
Fidler, Michael


Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian
Channon, Paul
Finsberg, Geoffrey


Ancram, M.
Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher
Fisher, Sir Nigel


Archer, Jeffrey
Churchill, W. S.
Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh, N.)


Atkins, Rt. Hn. Humphrey (Spelthorne)
Clark, A. K. M. (Plymouth, Sutton)
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles


Awdry, Daniel
Clark, William (Croydon, S.)
Fookes, Miss Janet


Baker. Kenneth
Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'field)


Balniel, Rt. Hn. Lord
Clegg, Walter
Fox, Marcus


Banks, Robert
Cockcroft, John
Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (St'fford &amp; Stone)


Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Cooke, Robert (Bristol, W.)
Fry, Peter


Bell, Ronald
Cope, John
Galbraith, Hn. T. G. D.


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)
Cordie, John
Gardiner, George (Reigate &amp; Banstead)


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Fareham)
Cormack, Patrick
Gardner, Edward (S. Fylde)


Benyon, W.
Corrie, John
Gibson-Watt. Rt. Hn. David


Berry, Hon. Anthony
Costain, A. P.
Gilmour, Rt. Hn. Ian (Ch 'sh' &amp; Amsh' m)


Bitten, John
Crouch, David
Gilmour, Sir John (Fife. E.)


Biggs-Davison, John
Crowder, F. P.
Glyn, Dr. Alan


Blaker, Peter
Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford)
Goodhart, Philip


Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.)
d' Avigdor-Goldsmid, Maj.-Gen. James
Goodhew, Victor


Boscawen, Hon. Robert
Dean, Paul (Somerset, N.)
Goodlad, A.


Bowden, Andrew (Brighton, Kemptown)
Dixon, Piers
Gorst, John


Boyson, Dr. Rhodes (Brent, N.)
Dodds-Parker, Sir Douglas
Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)


Braine, Sir Bernard
Dodsworth, Geoffrey
Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)


Bray, Ronald
Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec
Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)


Brewis, John
Drayson, Burnaby
Gray, Hamish


Brittan, John
du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward
Grieve, Percy


Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher
Durant, Tony
Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)


Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Dykes, Hugh
Grist, Ian


Bruce-Gardyne, J.
Eden, Rt. Hn. Sir John
Grylls, Michael


Bryan, Sir Paul
Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Gurden, Harold


Buchanan-Smith, Alick
Elliott, Sir William
Hall-Davies, A. G. F.


Buck, Antony
Emery, Peter
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)


Bulmer, Esmond
Eyre, Reginald
Hampson, Dr. Keith


Burden, F. A.
Fairgrieve, Russell
Hannam, John




Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Marten, Neil
Scott-Hopkins, James


Harvie Anderson, Rt. Hn. Miss
Mather, Carol
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)


Hastings, Stephen
Maude, Angus
Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)


Havers, Sir Michael
Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald
Shelton, Willam (L'mb'th, Streath'm)


Hayhoe, Barney
Mawby, Ray
Shersby, Michael


Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Silvester, Fred


Henderson, J.S.B.(Dunbartonshire, E.)
Mayhew, Patrick (Royal T' bridge Wells)
Sims, Roger


Heseltine, Michael
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Sinclair, Sir George


Higgins, Terence
Miller, Hal (B'grove &amp; R'ditch)
Skeet, T. H. H.


Hill, James A.
Mills, Peter
Smith, John (W'wick &amp; L'm'ngton)


Holland, Philip
Miscampbell, Norman
Spence, John


Hordern, Peter
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Spicer, Jim (Dorset, W.)


Howe, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Surrey, E.)
Moate, Roger
Spicer, Michael (Worcestershire. S.)


Howell, David (Guildford)
Money, Ernie
Sproat, Iain


Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, North)
Monro, Hector
Stainton, Keith


Hunt, John
Moore, J. E. M. (Croydon, C.)
Stanbrook, Ivor


Hurd, Douglas
Morgan, Geraint
Stanley, John


Hutchison, Michael Clark
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.
Steen, Anthony (L'pool, Wavertree)


Iremonger, T. L.
Morris, Mitchell (Northampton, S.)
Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)


Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
Stodart, Rt. Hn. A. (Edinburgh, W.)


James, David
Morrison, Peter (City of Chester)
Stokes, John


Jenkin, Rt. Hn. P. (R'dge W'std &amp; W'fd)
Mudd, David
Stradling Thomas, John


Jessel, Toby
Neave, Alrey
Tapsell, Peter


Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)
Neubert, Michael
Taverne, Dick


Jones, Arthur (Daventry)
Newton, Tony (Braintree)
Taylor, Edward M. (Glgow, C'cart)


Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith
Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N.W.)


Kaberry, Sir Donald
Normanton, Tom
Tebbit, Norman


Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine
Nott, John
Temple-Morris, Peter


Kimball, Marcus
Onslow, Cranley
Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Margaret


King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally
Thomas, Rt. Hn. P. (B'net, H'den S.)


King, Tom (Bridgwater)
Osborn, John
Townsend, C. D.


Kirk, Peter
Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)
Trotter, Neville


Kitson, Sir Timothy
Parkinson, Cecil (Hertfordshire, S.)
Tugendhat, Christopher


Knight, Mrs. Jill
Pattie, Geoffrey
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Knox, David
Percival, Ian
Vaughan, Dr. Gerard


Lamont, Norman
Pink, R. Bonner
Viggers, Peter


Lane, David
Price, David (Eastleigh)
Waddington, David


Langford-Holt, Sir John
Prior, Rt. Hn. James
Wakeham, John


Latham, Michael (Melton)
Raison, Timothy
Walder, David (Clitheroe)


Lawrence, Ivan
Rathbone, Tim
Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester)


Lawson, Nigel (Blaby)
Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek


Le Marchant, Spencer
Redmond, Robert
Wall, Patrick


Lester, Jim (Beeston)
Rees, Peter (Dover &amp; Deal)
Walters, Dennis


Lewis, Kenneth (Rtland &amp; Stmford)
Rees-Davies, W. R.
Warren, Kenneth


Lloyd, Ian (Havant &amp; Waterloo)
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David (H 't' gd 'ns 're)
Weatherill, Bernard


Loveridge, John
Renton, R. T. (Mid-Sussex)
Wells, John


McAdden, Sir Stephen
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
West, Rt. Hn. Harry


MacArthur, Ian
Ridsdale, Julian
Winterton, Nicholas


McCrindle, R. A.
Rifkind, Malcolm
Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard


Macfarlane, Neil
Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey
Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher


MacGregor, John
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.-W.)
Worsley, Sir Marcus


McLaren, Martin
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)
Young, Sir George (Ealing, Acton)


Macmillan, Rt. Hn. M. (Farnham)
Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)



McNair-Wilson, Michael (Newbury)
Rosel, Hugh (Hornsey)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)
Rost, Peter (Derbyshire, S.-E.)
Mr. Paul Hawkins and


Madel, David
Sainsbury, Tim
Mr. Richard Luce.


Marshall, Michael (Arundel)
St. John-Stevas, Norman

Question accordingly agreed to.

Resolved,
That the Counter-Inflation (Abolition of Pay Board) Order 1974, a draft of which was laid before this House on 9th July, be approved.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That the consideration of Lords amendments to the Health and Safety at Work etc. Bill may be proceeded with at this day's Sitting, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Walter Johnson.]

Orders of the Day — HEALTH AND SAFETY AT WORK ETC. BILL

Lords amendments considered.

Clause 1

PRELIMINARY

Lords amendment: No. 1, in page 2, line 9, after "regulations" insert—
and agricultural health and safety regulations".

10.14 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Harold Walker): I beg to move, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

Mr. Speaker: I suggest that it will be for the convenience of the House to take at the same time the following Lords amendments:

No. 7, in Clause 11, page 8, line 29, at end insert—
except as regards matters relating exclusively to agricultural operations".

No. 8, in page 8, line 30, at end insert "except as aforesaid".

No. 9, in Clause 14, page 11, line 30, at end insert—
but shall no do so in any particular case that appears to the Commission to involve only matters relating exclusively to agricultural operations.

No. 10, in Clause 15, page 12, line 33, leave out from "46" to end of line 36 and insert—
the Secretary of State shall have power to make regulations under this section (in this Part referred to as Health and Safety regulations) for any of the general purposes of this Part except as regards matters relating exclusively to agricultural operations.

No. 12, in page 14, line 9, leave out subsection (9).

No. 13, in Clause 16, page 14, line 27, at end insert—
and except as regards matters relating exclusively to agricultural operations".

No. 14, in Clause 18, page 17, line 12, after "regulations" insert—
or agricultural health and safety regulations".

No. 15, in page 17, line 24, after "than" insert—
the appropriate Agriculture Minister".

No. 19, after Clause 28, in page 29, line 5, at end insert new Clause "A"—

General Functions of Ministers responsible for agriculture in relation to the relevant agricultural purposes.

"A.—(1) It shall be the duty of the appropriate Agriculture Minister—
(a) to do such things and make such arrangements as he considers appropriate for the relevant agricultural purposes; and
(b) to make such arrangements as he considers appropriate for securing that employers, employees, organisations representing employers and employees respectively, and other persons concerned with matters relevant to any of the those purposes are kept informed of, and adequately advised on, such matters.

(2) The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food shall make an annual report to Parliament of his proceedings under the relevant statutory provisions, and may include that report in the annual report made to Parliament in pursuance of section 13 of the Agricultural Wages Act 1948.

(3) The Secretary of State concerned with agriculture in Scotland shall make an annual report to Parliament of his proceedings under the relevant statutory provisions."

No. 20, in page 29, line 5, at end insert new Clause "B":

Agricultural health and safety regulations

"B.—(1) Regulations under this section (in this Part referred to as "agricultural health and safety regulations") may be made for any of the relevant agricultural purposes.

(2) Agricultural health and safety regulations may be either regulations applying to Great Britain and made by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Secretary of State acting jointly, or regulations applying to England and Wales only and made by the said Minister, or regulations applying to Scotland only and made by the Secretary of State.

(3) Where health and safety regulations make provision for any purpose with respect to a matter that relates to (but not exclusively to) agricultural operations—
(a) provision for that purpose shall not be made with respect to that matter by agricultural health and safety regulations so as to have effect while the first-mentioned provision is in force except for the purpose of imposing requirements additional to those imposed by health and safety regulations, being additional requirements which in the opinion of the authority making the agricultural health and safety regulations are necessary or expedient in the special circumstances of agricultural operations; and
(b) in the event of any inconsistency between the first-mentioned provision and any provision made with respect to that matter by agricultural health and safety regulations, the first-mentioned provision shall prevail.

(4) The provisions of section 15(2) to (10) and Schedule 3 shall have effect in relation to agricultural health and safety regulations as they have effect in relation to health and safety regulations subject to the following modifications, that is to say—
(a) references to the relevant statutory provisions shall be read as references to such of the relevant statutory provisions as relate to agriculture;
(b) in section 15(4) the references to the Commission shall be read as references to the appropriate Agriculture Minister;
(c) in section 15(6) and paragraph 23 of Schedule 3, the reference to health and safety regulations shall be read as a reference to agricultural health and safety regulations.

(5) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1) above, agricultural health and safety regulations may, as regards agricultural licences under any of the relevant statutory provisions, make provision for requiring the authority having power to issue, renew, vary, transfer or revoke such licences to notify—
(a) any applicant for the issue, renewal, variation or transfer of such a licence of any proposed decision of the authority to refuse the application; or
(b) the holder of such a licence of any proposed decision of the authority to revoke the licence or to vary any term, condition or restriction on or subject to which the licence is held; and for enabling persons aggrieved by any such proposed decision to make representations to, or to a person appointed by, the relevant authority within the period and in the manner prescribed by the regulations.

(6) In relation to any agricultural health and safety regulations made in pursuance of paragraph 2 of Schedule 3 as applied by this section, subsection (2) above shall have effect as if after the words "Great Britain" there were inserted the words "or the United Kingdom"."

No. 21, in page 29, line 5, at end insert new Clause "C"—

Enforcement of the relevant statutory provisions in connection with agriculture

"C.—Subject to any provision made by regulations under section 15, 18 or (Agricultural health and safety regulations), it shall be the duty of the appropriate Agriculture Minister to make adequate arrangements for the enforcement of the relevant statutory provisions in their application to matters relating exclusively to the relevant agricultural purposes."

No. 22, in page 29, line 5, at end insert new Clause "D"—

Application of provisions of this Part in connection with agriculture

"D.—(1) The following provisions of this section shall have effect with a view to the application of certain provisions of this Part in relation to the Agriculture Ministers or


matters relating exclusively to the relevant agricultural purposes.

(2) Subject to the following subsection—
(a) sections 13, 14, 17(3), 27 and 28 shall apply in relation to the appropriate Agriculture Minister as they apply in relation to the Commission;
(b) section 16 shall apply in relation to matters relating exclusively to the relevant agricultural purposes as it applies in relation to other matters.

(3) In their application as provided by the preceding subsection, the provisions of this Part which are specified in the first column of Schedule (Modifications of Part I in connection with Agriculture) shall have effect subject to the modifications provided for in the second column of that Schedule."

No. 23, in Clause 29, page 29, line 11, after "regulations" insert:
or agricultural health and safety regulations

No. 27, in page 30, line 39, after "Executive" insert:
or the appropriate Agriculture Minister

No. 28, in Clause 39, page 35, line 16, at end insert:
the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food".

No. 29, in page 35, line 31, leave out from "exercisable" to the end of line 33, and insert:
"(a) as regards functions with respect of matters not relating exclusively to agricultural operations by the Secretary of State;
(b) as regards functions with respect to matters relating exclusively to the relevant agricultural purposes by the appropriate agriculture authority.

(6A) Regulations under this section as regards functions falling within subsection (6)(b) above may be either regulations applying to Great Britain and made by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Secretary of State acting jointly, or regulations applying to England and Wales only and made by the said Minister, or regulations applying to Scotland only and made by the Secretary of State; and in subsection (6)(b) above the appropriate agriculture authority' shall be construed accordingly."

No. 30, in Clause 40, page 36, line 3, after "than" insert "agricultural licences and"

No. 31, in page 37, line 3, leave out "a" and insert "an agricultural licence or"

No. 32, in Clause 43, page 41, line 4, after "regulations" insert:
or agricultural health and safety regulations

No. 33, in page 41, line 11, after "regulations" insert:

or as the case may be agricultural health and safely regulations

No. 34, in page 41, line 21, after "regulations" insert:
or as the case may be agricultural health and safety regulations

No. 35, in Clause 45, page 42, line 7, leave out line 7 and insert:
(1) the appropriate Ministers may by regulations amend

No. 37, in page 42, line 20, leave out:
authority making the regulations" and insert "appropriate Minister

No. 39, in page 42, line 28, leave out subsection (4) and insert:
(4) In this section the appropriate Minister means—
(a) in relation to any provision not relating exclusively to agricultural operations the Secretary of State;
(b) in relation to any provision not relating exclusively to the relevant agricultural purposes that applies to Great Britain or the United Kingdom the Agriculture Ministers;
(c) in relation to any provision so relating that applies to England and Wales only, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food;
(d) in relation to any provision so relating that applies to Scotland only, the Secretary of State."

No. 40, in Clause 46, page 42, line 32, leave out from beginning to "so" on page 43, line 1, and insert:
(1) Subject to subsection (5) below any power to make regulations conferred on the Secretary of State by any of the relevant statutory provisions may be exercised by him either so as to give effect (with or without modifications) to proposals for the making of regulations by him under that power submitted to him by the Commission or independently of any such proposals, but before making any regulations under any of those provisions independently of any such proposals the Secretary of State shall consult the Commission and such other bodies as appear to him to be appropriate.
(2) Where the Secretary of State proposes to exercise any such power as is mentioned in the preceding subsection".

No. 41, in page 43, line 4, leave out "under section 11(2)(d)" and insert "to the Secretary of State".

No. 42, in page 43, line 20, at end insert:
(4) Where the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Secretary of State or either of them propose or proposes to make any regulations under any of the relevant statutory provisions, they or he shall before making the regulations consult the Commission and such other bodies as appeared to them or him to be appropriate.

(5) Subsections (1) to (3) above shall not apply to any power of the Secretary of State to make regulations which is capable of being exercised by him for Great Britain jointly with the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food."

No. 43, in Clause 48, page 43, line 42, leave out from "exercisable" to the end of line 44 and insert:
"(a) in relation to activities not relating exclusively to agricultural operations, by the Secretary of State;
(b) in relation to activities relating exclusively to the relevant agricultural purposes, by the appropriate agriculture authority.

(4) Regulations under subsection (2) above in relation to activities falling within subsection (3)(b) above may be either regulations applying to Great Britain and made by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Secretary of State acting jointly, or regulations applying to England and Wales only and made by the said Minister, or regulations applying to Scotland only and made by the Secretary of State; and in subsection (3)(b) above "the appropriate agriculture authority" shall be construed accordingly."

No. 44, in Clause 49, page 44, line 1, at end insert:
 "agriculture", subject to subsection (3)below, includes horticulture, fruit growing, seed growing, dairy farming, livestock breeding and keeping (including the management of livestock up to the point of slaughter or export from Great Britain), forestry, the use of land as grazing land, meadow land, osier land, market gardens and nursery grounds, and the preparation of land for agricultural use, and "agricultural" shall be construed accordingly; "the Agriculture Ministers" means the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Secretary of State and, in the case of anything falling to be done by the Agriculture Ministers, means those Ministers acting jointly; "agricultural health and safety regulations" has the meaning assigned by section (Agricultural health and safety regulations) (1); "agricultural licence" means a licence of the Agriculture Ministers or either of them under any of the relevant statutory provisions; "agricultural operation" does not include an agricultural operation performed otherwise than in the course of a trade, business or other undertaking (whether carried on for profit or not) but, subject to subsection (2) below, includes any operation incidental to agriculture which is performed in the course of such a trade, business or undertaking; "the appropriate Agriculture Minister" means. for the purpose of the application of any of the relevant statutory provisions to England and Wales, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and, for the purposes of the application of any of those provisions to Scotland, the Secretary of State;".

No. 45, in page 44, line 45, at end insert:
 "forestry" includes—
(a) the felling of trees and the extraction and primary conversion of trees within the

wood or forest in which they were grown, and
(b) the use of land for woodlands where that use is ancillary to the use of land for other agricultural purposes;".

No. 47, in page 45, line 12, at end insert—
 "livestock" includes any creature kept for the production of food, wool, skins or fur, or for the purpose of its use in the carrying on of any agricultural activity;".

No. 48, in page 45, line 41, at end insert—
 "the relevant agricultural purposes" means the following purposes, that is to say—
(a) securing the health, safety and welfare at work of persons engaged in agricultural operations,
(b) protecting persons other than persons so engaged against risks to health or safety arising out of or in connection with the activities at work of persons so engaged."

No. 49, in page 46, line 14, at end insert—

"(2) In determining in any particular case whether an operation is incidental to agriculture within the meaning of the definition of "agricultural operation" in other preceding subsection, regard shall be had to the magnitude of the operation and to the scale on which it is performed as well as to all other relevant circumstances.

(3) Provision may be made by order for directing that for the purposes of this Part any activity or operation specified in the order which would or would not otherwise be agriculture within the meaning of this Part shall be treated as not being or, as the case may be, being agriculture for those purposes.

(4) An order under subsection (3) above may be either an order applying to Great Britain and made by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Secretary of State acting jointly, or an order applying to England and Wales only and made by the said Minister, or an order applying to Scotland only and made by the Secretary of State.

(5) An order under subsection (3) above may be varied or revoked by a subsequent order thereunder made by the authority who made the original order.

(6) The power to make orders under subsection (3) above shall be exercisable by statutory instrument subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament."

No. 51, in Clause 76, page 79, line 39, leave out from "exercisable" to the end of line 45, and insert—
"(a) in relation to provisions not relating exclusively to agricultural operations, by the Secretary of State;
(b) in relation to provisions relating exclusively to the relevant agricultural purposes, by the appropriate agriculture authority;


but before making regulations under that subsection the Secretary of State or the appropriate agriculture authority shall consult such bodies as appear to the Secretary of State, or, as the case may be, that authority to be appropriate.

(5) Regulations under subsection (1) above in relation to provisions falling within subsection (4)(b) above may be either regulations applying to Great Britain and made by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Secretary of State acting jointly, or regulations applying to England and Wales only and made by the said Minister, or regulations applying to Scotland only and made by the Secretary of State; and in subsection (4)(b) above "the appropriate agriculture authority" shall be construed accordingly.

(6) In this section "the relevant statutory provisions," "the relevant agricultural purposes "and" agricultural operation have the same meaning as in Part I."

No. 52, in Clause 80, page 81, line 3, after "15" insert—
or (Agricultural health and safety regulations)".

No. 55, after Schedule 3, page 91, line 16, at end insert new Schedule "A"—

A MODIFICATIONS OF PART I IN CONNECTION WITH AGRICULTURE

Provisions applied and Modifications

1. Section 13(1) (various powers).
(a) Paragraph (b) shall be omitted;
(b) references to the Commission or the Secretary of State shall be read as references to the appropriate Agricultural Minister, so however that references to the Commission's functions shall be read as references to the functions of that Minister under the relevant statutory provisions in relation to matters relating exclusively to the relevant agricultural purposes.

2. Section 14 (power to direct investigations and inquiries).
(a) References to the Commission shall be read as references to the appropriate Agriculture Minister;
(b) in subsection (1), the reference to the general purposes of Part I shall be read as a reference to the relevant agricultural purposes;
(c) in subsection (2), for the words from "direct" to "other" in paragraph (a) there shall be substituted the words "authorise any", the words "with the consent of the Secretary of State" shall be omitted, and for the words from "only matters" to the end of the subsection there shall be substituted the words "matters relating exclusively to the relevant agricultural purposes";

Mr. Harold Walker: The amendments made in another place which I am now asking this House to disagree with completely reverse amendments which this House agreed should be made on Report.
In our previous discussions about the application of the Bill to safety and health in agriculture, a lot of comments were made about U-turns, changes of mind and so on. If this House now accepts these amendments, and thus reverses its previous decision, I can only say that we shall have gone around an S-bend. But let me set the record to date straight as briefly as I can.
In our debate on Second Reading seven hon. Members—other than myself—specifically mentioned the special provisions for agriculture which the Bill then contained: three spoke from this side; four spoke from the Opposition benches, including the Opposition Front Bench spokesman. All those speakers, without exception, either queried or criticised the existence in the Bill of the special provisions for agriculture—a remarkable display of the bipartisan attitude that this House can adopt when it is considering matters on their merits.
Next, in Standing Committee amendments to delete those special provisions were tabled in the name of hon. Members on both sides of the Committee. They were withdrawn only upon my giving assurances that there would be further consultations on the matter between the Ministers most concerned, and with the organisations most concerned, before Report stage.
As a result of further consultations, amendments to delete the special provisions for agriculture were re-tabled on Report, this time as Government amendments. They were approved by this House without a Division.
That, in a nutshell, is the history of the proceedings in this House—a chain of events which started right at the beginning of our proceedings, and during which the House steadily moved towards a clear decision—a clear decision which was in accord with the impartial views of many outside organisations with no vested interests to protect. That clear decision was reversed in another place last week. This House now has the opportunity to re-assert its decision—a decision that it came to by way of a classic demonstration of the way that our legislative procedure works at its best.
The House will not want me to rehearse all of the arguments about health and safety in agriculture yet again. I will try


to summarise the substance of the matter as briefly as I can. Let me go right to the heart of it straight away. The Government have tabled this motion because they consider that these amendments are destructive of one of the fundamental objectives of the Bill—that is, the integration of responsibility for health and safety problems in all industry under a new organisation solely devoted to health and safety. Let me stress that this is not a matter of administrative tidiness. It is a question of giving health and safety probelms the status and priority they deserve, as a distinct entity not subordinated to other questions affecting the operations of industry, and not to be treated as a Cinderella in the scale of priorities.
The amendments made in another place seek to preserve the fragmentation, the sectional departmental interests, which the Robens Report criticised and which the Bill is designed to change. It is for those who have welcomed this Bill, and have supported it as a major step forward, to decide what should be done about amendments which are hostile to the central purpose and rationale of the Bill. It is for those who would support these amendments to explain why the Bill should not apply to agriculture in the same way as it applies to all the other different industries, each of which has its own unique features. It is for them to explain why it is only in relation to agriculture that the responsibilities of the Health and Safety Commission and its Executive should be restricted. It is for them to explain why the existence of a Ministry of Agriculture, responsible for the industry generally, should influence the realignment of health and safety responsibilities and priorities which the Bill seeks to achieve.
I say it is for them to explain and justify these things because, in fact, such case as there ever was for making special provisions for agriculture did not rest, and never has rested, upon any intrinsic differences in the nature of the industry's safety problems. The case—I admit that it was at first accepted by the Government—rested upon the organisational difficulties of enforcing safety requirements in a very widely dispersed industry.
Two things have now undermined that original case. First, the Government have accepted the validity of the criticisms

levelled against the original special provisions for agriculture both inside and outside Parliament—namely, that they did not deal solely with the organisational problem but went far beyond it in creating a special preserve for the Ministry of Agriculture, which is not an organisation concerned solely with health and safety.
Secondly, the Government have proposed a solution to the organisational problem, a solution which, unlike these amendments, does not leave safety and health in agriculture out of the main stream of the progress which the Bill provides for. This solution is that the Agricultural Departments should carry out enforcement functions on behalf of the Commission and its Executive, and to its specifications, on an agency basis, which indeed is what the Robens Report recommended.
Earlier, I explained that the Bill enabled the Commission and the Agricultural Departments to make an agreed agency arrangement whereby the expertise of the field officers of the Agriculture Departments would continue to be utilised on safety enforcement duties.
It was objected that this would mean that field officers of the Agriculture Departments would have to work to two masters. That is not the case. There would be no change in the line of command within the Agriculture Departments. The agency agreement would be made between the Commission and senior officers of the Agriculture Departments; it is those senior officers who would carry the responsibility for the implementation of the agreement by the Agriculture Departments, and the line of command and accountability would run from them right through to the field officers.
I should also make very clear that we have ensured that the agency agreement can authorise the Agriculture Departments to exercise any enforcement powers that are necessary to enable them to carry out their functions under the agreement, including, for example, powers to appoint inspectors and to conduct prosecutions.

Mr. Hector Monro: Does what the hon. Gentleman is saying also cover Scotland, where the inspectorate deals both with safety and with wages?


This is of crucial importance in relation to Scottish procedures.

Mr. Walker: The arrangement will be exactly the same for Scotland, as I understand it.
There were those in another place who were not entirely satisfied about certain aspects of the proposed agency arrangement. Their solution was to table an avalanche of amendments which had nothing to do with making an agency agreement; they simply cut the Health and Safety Commission out of farm safety enforcement altogether.
Last week in another place the ex-General Secretary of the National Union of Agricultural and Allied Workers made a quite and dignified plea on behalf of the farm workers. He said that they had been treated differently so often in the past, as if they were second-class citizens. [HON. MEMBERS: "Come off it."] I only hope that that reaction can find its way on to the record. The sneers of the Opposition are an indication and an indictment of their attitude to the Bill. I wonder how many of them are employers of those workers about whose interests they sneer.
I was saying that the eloquent and gentle plea of the former General Secretary of the National Union of Agricultural and Allied Workers was that farm workers should be treated differently in the future. That plea fell on deaf ears. But I do not believe that it will fall on deaf ears in this House, which has so warmly welcomed the general philosophy of this Bill—that health and safety in all industry should be given a status on its own, in order that it may be accorded the priority which it deserves.
I invite the House to support the motions disagreeing with the Lords in these amendments.

Mr. Charles Morrison: I have to begin by apologising to the hon. Gentleman for the fact that he finds himself confronting yet another new face. My hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling), who dealt with this matter on Report, has asked me to apologise for the fact that he is unable to be present tonight. He has had to fulfil an engagement previously arranged to be carried out by my right hon. Friend the

Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym), who is temporarily indisposed.
As the hon. Gentleman said, these amendments have been debated so often that not only must they have become a little tired and sorry that they have not yet found a permanent home but the arguments have been so well rehearsed so often that there is little to be gained from lengthy repetition of them. For those reasons, I make only two points.
Before I come to them, I want first to express extreme regret that the Government are not prepared to accept the revisions of the other place in connection with these amendments, which concern means and not ends. It is common ground that there should be measures to improve the safety record of agriculture. There is no question of treating agricultural workers differently. It is, on the other hand, purely a matter of judgment within the wider provisions of the Bill as to who is best fitted to achieve that end. This side of the House, with one or two exceptions, has consistently believed that the Minister of Agriculture should be responsible. Originally this was also the belief of the Government, but they changed their mind. There is nothing in particular to be said for consistency but there is a good deal to be said for being influenced by the weight of the argument, and I believe that the Government have been wrongly influenced.
The Under-Secretary wrote to my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland a helpful letter explaining his proposals for the chain of responsibility, assuming that the commission is responsible for Health and safety in agriculture. The proposals in the letter assume that the commission will establish an agency agreement with the Ministry of Agriculture, but that is a broad assumption. Nothing in the Bill insists on such an agency agreement, nor is there anything about the nature of such an agreement. Therefore, I ask the Under-Secretary what guarantee there is that such an agreement will be made. I imagine that the Under-Secretary's letter will commit this Government, but they are not, I hope, going to be the last Government, and future Governments may take a totally different view which might not have some of the supposed conditions of the sort of agency agreement which the Under-Secretary describes. But even if there is such an


agreement along the lines suggested by the Under-Secretary in his letter it seems that it would be little more than a facade. The Under-Secretary has referred to that agreement. In his letter he said:
The agency agreement will be made between senior officers representing the Agricultural Departments and the Commission. This means that formal responsibility for implementing the agreement will lie with the Permanent Secretaries of the Agricultural Departments, and basic instructions to those working in the field will derive ultimately from them as at present.
The letter later states:
But no instructions will be issued direct to Field Officers by the Health and Safety Executive. The actual chain of command and accountability will continue to be from and to the senior officers in the Headquarters of the Agricultural Departments who enter into the agency agreement with the Commission.
With the chain of command being so closely interwoven with the Minister of Agriculture, what is the point of intervening the executive, and only at such a high level? There is a great deal to be said for putting the Ministry of Agriculture on its mettle, as the only single-industry Department, to try to provide even better safety services and coverage than the executive.
I remind the Under-Secretary that there is a precedent for leaving responsibility of this type solely with the Ministry of Agriculture, and there is also a warning; namely, experience with the Agricultural, Horticultural and Forestry Training Board. The Under-Secretary will remember the experience with that board. Suffice it to say, therefore, that the peculiarities of the structure of agriculture and its relationship to one Department convince us that that Department is best fitted to retain responsibility for as much as possible of what occurs in the industry.
Agriculture is fragmented. It involves small labour units and it has an immense diversity of employment. It already has its own field officers, who are to continue to be responsible for safety, and its own Ministry. For all these reasons, I recommend the House to oppose the motion.

10.30 p.m.

Mr. Emlyn Hooson: I am surprised that the Government are persisting in their attempt to return to the form in which the Bill originally left this House. The Minister's speech was profoundly dissatisfying. [An HON.

MEMBER: "Do not be intolerant."] I as not: it is the Minister who is intolerant—of sensible amendments. He began with an account of the historical process in the House a few weeks ago. He said that if we failed to carry the Government's motion, the House would have made an S-turn. We should have done more than that: we should have reversed the Government's policy. But it is sensible to do so. The Government themselves changed their minds at one stage, as the Minister admitted.
The sole question before us is not whether farm workers and their families are entitled to proper health and safety regulations, but how they are best administered. There are already experienced field officers in the Ministry of Agriculture. The danger with the Health and Safety Commission is that it will tend to become a centralised, bureaucratic body. It is more sensible for the farm workers that the regulations continue to be introduced and administered by the Ministry of Agriculture. The Minister of Agriculture is directly responsible to this House. He can be questioned about why regulations are not being introduced and so on. Who is to answer for the commission? It is not directly responsible. It is much more indirectly responsible than the Minister.
I have no doubt that the Minister was correct when he said that the ex-Secretary of the National Union of Agricultural Workers made a dignified and eloquent speech in the House of Lords. I am sure that we could all have agreed with seven-eighths of that speech, about the need for greater safety in agriculture. But it is quite a different thing to go on from that to imply, as the Minister did, that hon. Members on this side are not concerned about the safety of farm workers. That was a nasty innuendo, which the Minister, for whom I have great respect, should not have made.

Mr. Harold Walker: rose—

Mr. Hooson: I will give way in a moment. Everyone knows that the safety record in agriculture is improving and the number of deaths is going down. There are still too many, especially in areas like mine, and with the best equipment in the world. The tractor accidents which cause most deaths have nothing to do with the machines. It is the farm


worker, often the farmer himself—I have had personal friends killed in this way—who will try to do the impossible with a tractor, and no one can stop him.
I am not saying that there should not be tight regulations to try to prevent these accidents, but I am certain that the field officers of the Ministry of Agriculture have far greater experience than anyone in the Health and Safety Commission. It would, therefore, be sensible of the Government not to persist with this motion.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): Mr. Farr.

Mr. Hooson: I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I said that I would give way to the Minister.

Mr. Harold Walker: I wanted to intervene when the hon. and learned Gentleman was rebuking me for criticising Opposition Members. I do not want him to misunderstand me. I was rebuking those who sneered when I quoted the words of the noble Lord who was formerly General Secretary of the National Union of Agricultural and Allied Workers. I felt justified in my anger, and I still feel justified for rebuking them.

Mr. John Farr: I add my support to those on the Opposition benches who are trying to retain the useful amendments made in another place. Such amendments are essential with regard to safety in agriculture. I very much regret not having had the opportunity to serve on the Committee considering the Bill so that I could take part in the discussions earlier.

Mr. Leslie Spriggs: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Some of us are aware of the interests of Opposition Members, but since the last General Election many new Members have entered the House who are not aware of those interests. May I ask through you whether Opposition Members will declare their interest.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Every right hon. and hon. Gentleman takes upon himself the responsibility for declaring an interest if he has one.

Mr. Farr: Certainly I will declare an interest in agriculture. As the hon. Gentleman well knew, I have an interest,

and I hope that I shall long continue to have an interest.
The amendments made in another place have improved the Bill no end, and I hope that they will be persisted with, because of the special situation in agriculture. People in the industry have to operate complex machinery today. A worker can go away for two or three days, out of sight of anyone else, and have sole charge of such machinery. That happens in virtually no other industry. An operator in agriculture must also have specialised knowledge of handling all the many poisonous chemicals that are used, such as herbicides and pesticides. There are unique agricultural problems of spray drift and so on.
The present arrangements whereby the Ministry of Agriculture has been responsible for supervising the work have served the industry as a whole well. The Ministry took time to get to grips with many of the problems that occurred just after the war, but in recent years we have seen a succession of useful measures from the Ministry, which have been piloted through the House by both Conservative and Labour Ministers. We have had valuable regulations relating to safety cabs on tractors, which have already had a marked impact on the annual number of fatalities. We have a range of sophisticated regulations, which are slowly coming into effect, relating to the noise level in tractors and the effect of noise on the operator in a tractor for continued periods. These are special problems relating to agriculture. I feel that the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is getting to grips with these matters and starting to make a real impact.
I hasten to say that none of us can be complacent about fatalities in agriculture. The House may be aware of the fact that in the past five years no fewer than 637 persons have died on our farms and that over 36,000 persons have been injured. In agriculture, fatalities per thousand have not declined from about 0·15 for a number of years. That is accounted for by the continual introduction of more and more complex machines.
Possibly the greatest objection to the transfer of the existing powers from the Ministry of Agriculture to the Health and Safety Commission is that it will


affect the tremendously close liaison which exists between agriculture on the one hand and the agricultural, horticultural and forestry training boards on the other. The Ministry and the training boards work together extremely efficiently. The House will agree that it is only first-class training and instruction which will continue to bring about a decline in the number of fatalities on the farms.
If we are to transfer power to the Health and Safety Commission I believe that, whatever its merits may be, in the long term the result will be a pause of a year or two while the different mechanism of control comes into use. That could have a bad effect on the impact which Ministry officials are having on farm safety. They are doing a great job. I fear that if the House seeks to change the system the change will be to the detriment of agricultural safety in general.

Mr. Peter Mills: I must take the Minister to task for his attitude. I earlier shouted "Nonsense" because farmers—and I must declare an interest as a farmer—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I was a farm worker in days gone by. That is more than any Labour hon. Member can say. Come on, stand up. I shall give way. Not one Labour hon. Member has ever been a farm worker.

Mr. Harold Walker: rose—

Mr Mills: When I said "Nonsense" I was commenting on the assertion that the farm worker was a second-class person. Most of us realise what first-class men they are. I believe that the Minister is wrong. He should apologise to the House. It is easy for Labour hon. Members to think that they have a monopoly of those who are concerned with farm workers. Some of us who had very humble origins know what it is to work. That is more than you can say.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I know very well what it is to work.

Mr. Mills: I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was really addressing my remarks to Labour hon. Members.
I have been concerned with agricultural safety for some time. I think, without boasting, that I was one of the

first in the House to be concerned about safety cabs. I am very much concerned with these matters and my record proves it. They are of great importance to agricultural safety and health.
I regret to say that I think agricultural accidents are increasing because of the sophisticated machinery that is now being used. It is essential to have a good programme of education. I believe that that should come from the Ministry. The Ministry has the trust of the farmers. Certainly the inspectors are men of integrity and of great help. They have the confidence of the farmers. The Ministry has a long tradition of taking an interest in safety. Further, the Ministry is responsible to the House. When I look back on the Questions that I have asked on this subject I realise how important it is that we should be able to question the Ministry about health and safety in agriculture.
I do not believe that the agency goes far enough. I ask the House to consider this proposal very carefully because much is at stake. Those of us concerned about these matters sincerely believe that the Ministry of Agriculture and not the commission should handle them and many farm workers agree with us.

10.45 p.m.

Mr. James Prior: I declare an interest as a farmer. Of course, if this Government remain in office much longer I shall wish to get rid of my interest. If the agency arrangements are to be as the Under-Secretary of State describes, I cannot see why he cannot leave the whole thing in the hands of the Ministry of Agriculture. That would be the sensible thing to do. If, on the other hand, the agency is not to be a true contact with the Ministry, it does not meet his case and certainly not our case.
The truth is that this is a dirty little local squabble within the Government. The argument is not really between Ministers but between officials of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Department of Employment into which Ministers have, unfortunately and regrettably, been drawn. I know exactly what has happened. The Ministry of Agriculture won the first round and the Department of Employment won the second round, with the result that the Bill had to be


changed. The Secretary of State for Employment will not deny that, because it is true.
The people who will suffer are the safety inspectorate of the Ministry of Agriculture, the devoted servants in that Ministry who have rendered very good service to the industry for many years and know their job, the Ministry as a whole, and, in all probability, the farm workers whom we all want to help and protect. For the sake of an interdepartmental squabble, the best interests of our finest industry and of the finest people in the world are to suffer. That is why we object so strongly to it.

Mr. Harold Walker: By leave of the House, I should like to make a brief reply. Right hon. and hon. Members opposite have not been talking about what is in the Bill. Nothing of what they said is in the Bill. These are merely administrative matters. What is in the Bill is who is to make the regulations, and hon. Members have not addressed themselves to that point.
In Committee the right hon. Member for Penrith and the Border Mr. White-law) said that he was in a somewhat difficult position. He went on:

"My personal position is that, having agreed as Secretary of State that agriculture should be excluded and having bowed to the view strongly held by the then Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, I do not feel that I can do one thing in Government and another in Opposition. That would be a dishonest position. Therefore, I must stand by what I did. If the Government decide that they are going to stand by the Bill as it now is, I will support them because that was my position.

I realise that the arguments are balanced, and this is only my personal position and I am not in any way entitled to advise my hon. Friends as to what they should do in these circumstances."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee A, 7th May 1974, c. 131.]

They got the message on that occasion and I wish the right hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior) would get it now. What we are doing has been recommended not by vested interests but by impartial observers like the British Safety Council, the Royal Society of the Prevention of Accidents, and others, and, above all, by Robens. We are acting in accordance with non-vested interests.

Question put, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment:—

The House divided: Ayes 153, Noes 159.

Division No. 93.]
AYES
[10.50 p.m.


Allaun, Frank
Dormand, J. D.
Janner, Greville


Archer, Peter
Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas


Ashton, Joe
Dunn, James A.
John, Brynmor


Atkinson, Norman
Dunnett, Jack
Johnson, Walter (Derby S.)


Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth
Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)


Barnett, Joel (Heywood &amp; Royton)
Eadie, Alex
Jones, Alec (Rhondda)


Bates, Alf
Edge, Geoff
Judd, Frank


Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood
Edwards, Robert (W'hampton, S. E.)
Kaufman, Gerald


Bidwell, Sydney
Ellis, John (Brigg &amp; Scunthorpe)
Kelley, Richard


Bishop, E. S.
Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)
Kerr, Russell


Blenkinsop, Albert
Ennals, David
Kinnock, Neil


Booth, Albert
Faulds, Andrew
Lamborn, Harry


Brown, Bob (Newcastle upon Tyne, W.)
Fernyhough, Rt Hn. E.
Lamond, James


Brown, Ronald (H'kney, S. &amp; Sh'ditch)
Flannery, Martin
Latham, Arthur (City of W'minster P'ton)


Butler, Mrs. Joyce(H'gey, WoodGreen)
Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)
Leadbitter, Ted


Carmichael, Neil
Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Lee, John


Carter, Ray
Foot, Rt. Hn. Michael
Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton &amp; Slough)


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Ford, Ben
Lyons, Edward (Bradford, W.)


Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara
Forrester, John
McElhone, Frank


Cocks, Michael
Fowler, Gerry (The Wrekin)
MacFarquhar, Roderick


Coleman, Donald
Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)
McGuire, Michael


Colquhoun, Mrs. M. N.
Freeson, Reginald
Mackenzie, Gregor


Concannon, J. D.
Garrett, John (Norwich, S.)
Maclennan, Robert


Cook, Robert F. (Edinburgh, C.)
George, Bruce
McNamara, Kevin


Cox, Thomas
Ginsburg, David
Madden, M. O. F.


Crawshaw, Richard
Graham, Ted
Magee, Bryan


Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Grant, George (Morpeth)
Marks, Kenneth


Cryer, G. R.
Grant, John (Islington, C.)
Marshall, Dr. Edmund (Goole)


Cunningham, G. (Is'l ingt' n, S &amp; F'sb'ry)
Hamling, William
Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert


Cunningham, Dr. John A. (Whiteh 'v' n)
Hardy, Peter
Mikardo, Ian


Dalyell, Tam
Harper, Joseph
Millan, Bruce


Davidson, Arthur
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Molloy, William


Davies, Bryan (Enfield, N.)
Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith
Moonman, Eric


Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)
Huckfield, Leslie
Newens, Stanley (Harlow)


Deakins, Eric
Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Oakes, Gordon


Dean, Joseph (Leeds, W.)
Hughes, Mark (Durham)
O'Halloran, Michael


Delargy, Hugh
Irving, Rt. Hn. Sydney (Dartford)
Ovenden, John




Palmer, Arthur
Selby, Harry
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Parry, Robert
Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (S'pney &amp; P'plar)
Watkins, David


Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred
Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (L'sham, D'ford)
Weitzman, David


Perry, Ernest G.
Silverman, Julius
Wellbeloved, James


Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg
Skinner, Dennis
Whitehead, Phillip


Prescott, John
Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)
Whitlock, William


Price, Christopher (Lewisham, W.)
Snape, Peter
Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick


Price, William (Rugby)
Spearing, Nigel
Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)


Radice, Giles
Spriggs, Leslie
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Richardson, Miss Jo
Stallard, A. W.
Wise, Mrs. Audrey


Roderick, Caerwyn E.
Stewart, Rt. Hn. M. (H'eth, Fulh'm)
Woodall, Alec


Rodgers, George (Chorley)
Stoddart, David (Swindon)



Rooker, J. W.
Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Rose, Paul B.
Tomlinson, John
Mr. John Golding and


Sandelson, Neville
Urwin, T. W.
Mr. Laurie Pavitt.


Sedgemore, Bryan






NOES


Aitken, Jonathan
Hooson, Emlyn
Prior, Rt. Hn. James


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Howe, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Surrey, E.)
Raison, Timothy


Atkins, Rt. Hn. Humphrey (Spelthorne)
Howell, David (Guildford)
Rathbone, Tim


Balniel, Rt. Hn. Lord
Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Banks, Robert
Hurd, Douglas
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David (H 't' gd 'ns' re)


Beith, A. J.
Iremonger, T. L.
Renton, R. T. (Mid-Sussex)


Benyon, W.
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon


Biffen, John
Jenkin, Rt. Hn. P. (R'dge W'std &amp; W'fd)
Ridley, Hn. Nicholas


Biggs-Davison, John
Jessel, Toby
Ridsdale, Julian


Body, Richard
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.-W.)


Boscawen, Hon. Robert
Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)


Bradford, Rev. R.
Kilfedder, James A.
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)


Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher
King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Sainsbury, Tim


Budgen, Nick
Kitson, Sir Timothy
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)


Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
Knight, Mrs. Jill
Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)


Carlisle, Mark
Knox, David
Shelton, William (L'mbeth, Streath'm)


Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert
Lamont, Norman
Silvester, Fred


Carson, John
Lane, David
Sims, Roger


Chalker, Mrs. Lynda
Latham, Michael (Melton)
Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)


Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher
Lawrence, Ivan
Spicer, Jim (Dorset, W.)


Churchill, W. S.
Lester, Jim (Beeston)
Stanbrook, Ivor


Clark, A. K. M. (Plymouth, Sutton)
Lloyd, Ian (Havant &amp; Waterloo)
Stanley, John


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Loveridge, John
Steel, David


Clegg, Walter
Luce, Richard
Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)


Cockcroft, John
MacArthur, Ian
Stokes, John


Cooke, Robert (Bristol, W.)
MacCormack, Iain
Stradling Thomas, John


Cope, John
McCusker, H.
Tebbit, Norman


Craig, Rt. Hn. William (Belfast, W.)
Macfarlane, Neil
Temple-Morris, Peter


Crouch, David
MacGregor, John
Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Margaret


Crowder, F. P.
Macmillan, Rt. Hn. M. (Farnham)
Thomas, Rt. Hn. P. (B'net, H'den S.)


Dodds-Parker, Sir Douglas
Madel, David
Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy


Dodsworth, Geoffrey
Mather, Carol
Townsend, C. D.


Durant, Tony
Mayhew, Patrick (RoylT'bridgeWells)
Trotter, Neville


Dykes, Hugh
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Tugendhat, Christopher


Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Miller, Hal (B'grove &amp; R'ditch)
Tyler, Paul


Emery, Peter
Mills, Peter
Vaughan, Dr. Gerard


Eyre, Reginald
Miscampbell, Norman
Viggers, Peter


Fairgrieve, Russell
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Waddington, David


Farr, John
Moate, Roger
Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)


Fenner, Mrs. Peggy
Molyneaux, James
Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester)


Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'field)
Money, Ernie
Warren, Kenneth


Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (St'fford &amp; Stone)
Morgan, Geraint
Weatherill, Bernard


Freud, Clement
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
West, Rt. Hn. Harry


Gardiner, George (Reigate &amp; Banstead)
Mudd, David
Wiggin, Jerry


Gardner, Edward (S Fylde)
Neave, Airey
Winstanley, Dr. Michael


Gibson-Watt, Rt Hn. David
Neubert, Michael
Winterton, Nicholas


Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)
Newton, Tony (Braintree)
Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher


Glyn, Dr Alan
Normanton, Tom
Worsley, Sir Marcus


Goodlad, A.
Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Grieve, Percy
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Mr. Spencer Le Marchant and


Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)
Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)
Mr. Cecil Parkinson.


Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.
Pardoe, John



Gurden, Harold
Pattie, Geoffrey
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Hall-Davies, A. G. F.
Percival, Ian
Mr. Spencer Le Marchant and


Harrison, Col Sir Harwood (Eye)
Price, David (Eastleigh)
Mr. Cecil Parkinson.


Henderson, Douglas (Ab 'rd' nsh 're, E)

Question accordingly negatived.

Mr. Harold Walker: I beg to move, in page 45, line 44, Clause 49, after "regulations" insert "and agricultural health and safety regulations."

This amendment is consequential to the last decision of the House.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Harold Walker: In view of the de-decision of the House to agree with the Lords amendments which restore the


special provisions for agriculture I shall have to move some consequential drafting amendments. The provisions which have just been put back in the Bill take no account of other amendments which have been made to the Bill by this House in another place. None of these drafting amendments will in any way undermine the special provisions that the House has just agreed. I hope the House will bear with me in moving these amendments in this fashion.

Clause 2

GENERAL DUTIES OF EMPLOYERS TO THEIR EMPLOYEES

Lords Amendment: No. 2, in page 3, line 25, at end insert—
(4A) Regulations made by the Secretary of State may provide for the election on prescribed cases by employees of safety representatives from amongst the employees, and those representatives shall represent the employees in consultations with the employers under subsection (5) below and may have such other functions as may be prescribed.

Mr. Harold Walker: I beg to move. That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this amendment we are to discuss Lords Amendment No. 3, in page 3, line 34, after "(4)" insert "and (5)".

Mr. Harold Walker: During earlier proceedings on the Bill in this House we had, at each stage, extensive discussion of the particular provisions to which these amendments, made in another place, relate. The House will be glad to know that I do not propose to go over all of the arguments in detail yet again. But because I am moving a Government motion to reject these amendments, and because the matter at issue is important, I must recapitulate the main points briefly.
These amendments cannot, of course, be considered in isolation from subsection (4) of Clause 2. The thinking behind subsection (4) of Clause 2 is perfectly simple, and I do not think there is anyone in this House who will dissent from the objective it aims at. We want to confer rights on trade unions to appoint safety representatives, because we want to make clear to trade unions that we want them

to shoulder more responsibility, we want them to play a more active part, we want them to take more initiatives, in promoting health and safety at the work place.
The proposition is so straightforward that I sometimes wonder at the heat that this subject generates on the benches opposite. We are asked: Why confine this provision to recognised trade unions only? What about workers who are not unionised? Hon. Members will not be surprised if my first answer to that is that they should join their union. All parties in this House have repeatedly affirmed the importance of a strong, responsible trade union movement. It is humbug to say this if at the same time one cannot bear to say that workers should be encouraged to join their trade union.
But, that apart, we have confined this provision to recognised trade unions only, for two very sound and practical reasons. First, the unions are the bodies best organised to take on these responsibilities. It can be positively detrimental to give rights and responsibilities to those who are not organised to make full use of them; the only effect is that such people will have less incentive to join the unions which really can help them. Secondly, if we legislate to require an employer to undertake consultations with his employees otherwise than through the normal channels, we are simply asking for industrial relation difficulties.
I appreciate that the amendments before us attempt to adopt a compromise position by providing a separate regulation-making power to confer rights on employees generally, and by making no reference to representative organisations of such employees—which would, of course, not be trade unions—being given rights to appoint safety representatives. These amendments recognise some of the difficulties.
Nonetheless, I am afraid that these amendments still do not overcome our fundamental objections. They still have the effect of giving legal rights—and thus responsibilities—to safety representatives who will not have an organisation to back them and assist them in exercising their responsibilities—unless, of course, hon. Members opposite envisage the development of employee organisations outside the recognised trade unions. Indeed, the amendment talks of the "election" of


safety representatives by employees. Who is to organise the elections? Just what do the supporters of these amendments have in mind, if not organisations that will in one way or another be rivals of the established trade unions? If there is no back-up organisation, where is the effectiveness of these rights and responsibilities?
Of course I recognise the concern about the position of non-unionised employees. But it is not a concern that derives from anything we are providing in the Bill. The Bill takes nothing whatsoever away from any non-unionised employees. If they prefer to continue making their own voluntary arrangements with their employers, there is nothing to prevent that. Better still, there is nothing to prevent them from joining a trade union.
All that we are doing is giving to trade unions rights and responsibilities which they have not had before, except in the coal mining industry. This is a longstanding and publicly-declared commitment of my party, dating back to our Employed Persons (Health and Safety) Bill of 1970), which was supported by all parties at the time. These amendments are not only unnecessary. They are, for the very practical reasons I have described, positively harmful, and I invite the House to reject them.

Mr. David Madel: I shall follow the example of the Minister in being as brief as possible, because, as he has said, we have had this argument many times—on Second Reading, in Committee, on Report—and, judged from the reports from the other place, they spent a fair amount of time on it, too.
These amendments are a mild and helpful addition to the Bill. The Minister will recall that our other amendments dealt with subsections (4) and (6), but this further addition is helpful because it will cover non-union or partially unionised plants much more effectively. On many occasions in Committee and on Report the Opposition said that it would often be the case that trade unionists should be the safety representatives. We have said repeatedly that this would be a normal occurrence. In no sense do the amendments upset the Government's desire to have the trade unions as safety representatives. We are merely recognising that

that desire cannot always be fulfilled, and that there will be cases in non-union or partially unionised plants where the Bill, as drafted, would not give employees full and adequate cover as laid down by the Robens Report. I should have hoped that after all our arguments the Government would have met us on these amendments.
In no sense will our proposals wreck the existing arrangement; neither can they be described as anti-trade union, because we have accepted many times that the normal thing will be for the trade unions to be safety representatives. Our amendments recognise the realities of many sections of British industry where plants are partially unionised or nonunion. There is no need for the Government, who have a pretty clean slate over the Bill, to spill doctrinaire ink now. They have the chance to make amends and to make the Bill much more effective by accepting the amendments.

Mr. Cyril Smith: It will come as no surprise to the Government to hear that my colleagues and I will be voting against them on this issue, especially since the amendment was moved in another place by a Liberal peer. The amendment raises an issue about which we shall hear a great deal in the coming months, whether trade unionists alone should be allowed to participate or whether any worker should be allowed to take part. Clearly, in a trade union organised establishment we would expect the persons appointed by the workers to represent them to be trade unionists. We argue that they need not necessarily be trade unionists. I cannot support a monopoly in this, even a monopoly for the trade union movement.
The Minister said in opening that the question will be asked what happens in an area of employment where workers are not in the trade union movement? I agree entirely with him that they ought to be in the trade union movement, but that does not alter the fact that in many important sections of the British economy and industry workers are not trade union members.
If I may mention a modern situation which may appeal to many hon. Members, it is the situation of those working on the oil rigs. There is great need there for safety, and I personally know of oil


rigs where there is not even a qualified radio operator aboard.
People should be organised into the trade union movement, but the fact is that they are not and in those situations they might well be able to be covered by the Bill.
The Secretary of State asks: what happens if they are not trade unionists, what organisations can back them? I can give him some news and tell him names of firms with works councils where the men are not members of trade unions. It may be a shock to him but it is a fact. In those cases where councils represent workers who are not members of unions, they have the works council to back them.
About half the workers of this country do not belong to a trade union. It is one thing for them to have the urging and encouragement to join a trade union, and another to deny them, even by implication, the right to have safety representatives.
I am disappointed that the Government have not found it possible to accept this simple amendment proposed in the other place. We are concerned about the safety and health of people, not just of trade unionists, and it seems to us that anyone employed in an industry, whether in a union or not, is entitled by law to be able to appoint safety representatives, and unless employees are given that obligation within the Bill, it may well be that the people who most need safety committees and representatives will be the very people to whom that right will not be afforded, as a consequence of

the Bill, because they are not members of a trade union.

I hope that, even at this late hour, the Government will change their stance, but if not, I hope the House will give them the same treatment on this proposition as on the last.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Mr. Patrick Mayhew.

Mr. Patrick Mayhew: It is nice not to be referred to always as the other Mr. Mayhew.
I heard the Minister say "We want to encourage trade unions to take safety seriously, and this is our reason for the amendment to what the Lords have proposed. We all wish trade unions to take safety seriously but it is a fact of industrial life that they do not always do so. It is to put the cart before the horse to resist the Lords amendment solely to encourage trade unions to take seriously probelms of industrial safety. The consequence will be—this the Minister implicitly recognises—that there are occasions when trade unions do not take industrial safety seriously. This will prevent industrial safety being taken seriously in the relevant factories and workshops. We object to the prohibition of safety committees being comprised of non-trade union members because the Government stand is to put the health of trade unionists first, rather than the health of workers. That is why we support the amendment.

Question put:

The House divided: Ayes 143, Noes 147.

Division No. 94.]
AYES
[11.15 p.m.


Allaun, Frank
Cox, Thomas
Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)


Archer, Peter
Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)


Ashton, Joe
Cryer, G. R.
Foot, Rt. Hn. Michael


Atkinson, Norman
Cunningham, G.(Isl' ngt'n, &amp; F'sb'ry)
Forrester, John


Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Cunningham, Dr. John A. (Whiteh'v'n)
Fowler, Gerry (The Wrekin)


Barnett, Joel (Heywood &amp; Royton)
Dalyell, Tam
Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)


Bates, Alf
Davidson, Arthur
Freeson, Reginald


Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood
Davies, Bryan (Enfield, N.)
Garrett, John (Norwich, S.)


Bishop, E. S.
Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)
George, Bruce


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Deakins, Eric
Ginsburg, David


Booth, Albert
Dean, Joseph (Leeds, W.)
Graham, Ted


Brown, Bob (Newcastle upon Tyne, W.)
Dormand, J. D.
Grant, George (Morpeth)


Brown, Ronald (H'kney, S. &amp; Sh'ditch)
Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Grant, John (Islington, C.)


Butler, Mrs. Joyce (H'gey, WoodGreen)
Dunn, James A.
Hamling, William


Carmichael, Neil
Dunnett, Jack
Hardy, Peter


Carter, Ray
Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth
Harper, Joseph


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Eadie, Alex
Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)


Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara
Edge, Geoff
Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith


Cocks, Michael
Ellis, John (Brigg &amp; Scunthorpe)
Huckfield, Leslie


Coleman, Donald
Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)
Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)


Colquhoun, Mrs. M. N.
Ennals, David
Hughes, Mark (Durham)


Concannon, J. D.
Faulds, Andrew
Irving, Rt. Hn. Sydney (Dartford)


Cook, Robert F. (Edinburgh, C.)
Flannery, Martin
Janner, Greville




Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Marshall, Dr. Edmund (Goole)
Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (L'sham, D'ford)


John, Brynmor
Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert
Silverman, Julius


Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)
Mikardo, Ian
Skinner, Dennis


Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)
Millan, Bruce
Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)


Jones, Alec (Rhondda)
Molloy, William
Snape, Peter


Judd, Frank
Moonman, Eric
Spearing, Nigel


Kaufman, Gerald
Newens, Stanley (Harlow)
Spriggs, Leslie


Kelley, Richard
O'Halloran, Michael
Stallard, A. W.


Kerr, Russell
Ovenden, John
Stewart, Rt. Hn. M. (H'sth, Ful'm)


Kinnock, Neil
Palmer, Arthur
Stoddart, David (Swindon)


Lamborn, Harry
Parry, Robert
Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)


Lamond, James
Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred
Tomlinson, John


Latham, Arthur (City of W'minster P'ton)
Perry, Ernest G.
Urwin, T. W.


Leadbitter, Ted
Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Lee, John
Prescott, John
Watkins, David


Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton &amp; Slough)
Price, Christopher (Lewisham, W.)
Weitzman, David


Lyons, Edward (Bradford, W.)
Price, William (Rugby)
Wellbeloved, James


McElhone, Frank
Richardson, Miss Jo
Whitehead, Phillip


MacFarquhar, Roderick
Roderick, Caerwyn E.
Whitlock, William


McGuire, Michael
Rodgers, George (Chorley)
Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick


Mackenzie, Gregor
Rooker, J. W.
Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)


Maclennan, Robert
Rose, Paul B.
Wise, Mrs. Audrey


McNamara, Kevin
Sandelson, Neville



Madden, M. O. F.
Sedgemore, Bryan
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Magee, Bryan
Selby, Harry
Mr. John Golding and


Marks, Kenneth
Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (S'pney &amp; P'plar)
Mr. Laurie Pavitt.




NOES


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)
Price, David (Eastleigh)


Atkins, Rt. Hn. Humphrey (Spelthorne)
Hurd, Douglas
Prior, Rt. Hn. James


Balniel, Rt. Hn. Lord
Iremonger, T. L.
Raison, Timothy


Banks, Robert
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Rathbone, Tim


Beith, A. J.
Jenkin, Rt. Hn. P. (R'dge W'std &amp; W'fd)
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Benyon, W.
Jessel, Toby
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David (H 't' gd' ns' re)


Biffen, John
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon


Biggs-Davison, John
Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith
Ridley, Hn. Nicholas


Boscawen, Hon. Robert
Kilfedder, James A.
Ridsdale, Julian


Bradford, Rev. R.
King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.W.)


Brocklebank Fowler, Christopher
Kitson, Sir Timothy
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)


Budgen, Nick
Knight, Mrs. Jill
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)


Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert
Knox, David
Sainsbury, Tim


Carson, John
Lamont, Norman
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)


Chalker, Mrs. Lynda
Lane, David
Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)


Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher
Latham, Michael (Melton)
Shelton, William (L'mb'th, Streatham)


Churchill, W. S.
Lawrence, Ivan
Silvester, Fred


Clark, A. K. M. (Plymouh, Sutton)
Le Marchant, Spencer
Sims, Roger


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Lester, Jim (Beeston)
Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)


Clegg, Walter
Loveridge, John
Smith, Dudley (W'wick &amp; L'm'ngton)


Cockcroft, John
Luce, Richard
Spicer, Jim (Dorset, W.)


Cooke, Robert (Bristol, W.)
MacArthur, Ian
Stanbrook, Ivor


Cope, John
McCusker, H.
Stanley, John


Craig, Rt. Hn. William (Belfast, E.)
Macfarlane, Neil
Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)


Crouch, David
MacGregor, John
Stokes, John


Dodds-Parker, Sir Douglas
Macmillan, Rt. Hn. M. (Farnham)
Stradling Thomas, John


Dodsworth, Geoffrey
Madel, David
Tebbit, Norman


Durant, Tony
Mather, Carol
Temple-Morris, Peter


Dykes, Hugh
Mayhew, Patrick (Royal T' bridge Wells)
Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret


Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Thomas, Rt. Hn. P. (B'net, H'den S.)


Emery, Peter
Miller, Hal (B'grove &amp; R'ditch)
Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy


Eyre, Reginald
Mills, Peter
Townsend, C. D.


Fairgrieve, Russell
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Trotter, Neville


Farr, John
Moate, Roger
Tugendhat, Christopher


Fenner, Mrs. Peggy
Molyneaux, James
Tyler, Paul


Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'field)
Money, Ernie
Vaughan, Dr. Gerard


Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (St'fford &amp; Stone)
Morgan, Geraint
Viggers, Peter


Freud, Clement
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
Waddington, David


Gardiner, George (Reigate &amp; Banstead)
Mudd, David
Wainwright, Richard (Come Valley)


Gibson-Watt, Rt. Hn. David
Neave, Airey
Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester)


Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)
Neubert, Michael
Weatherill, Bernard


Glyn, Dr. Alan
Newton, Tony (Braintree)
West, Rt. Hn. Harry


Goodlad, A.
Normanton, Tom
Wiggin, Jerry


Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)
Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally
Winstanley, Dr. Michael


Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Winterton, Nicholas


Gurden, Harold
Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)
Worsley, Sir Marcus


Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Pardoe, John



Holland, Philip
Parkinson, Cecil (Hertfordshire, S.)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Hooson, Emlyn
Pattie, Geoffrey
Mr. David Steel and


Howe, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Surrey, E.)
Percival, Ian
Mr. Adam Butler.


Howell, David (Guildford)

Question accordingly negatived.

Subsequent Lords amendment agreed to.

Clause 5

GENERAL DUTY OF PERSONS IN CONTROL OF CERTAIN PREMISES IN RELATION TO HARMFUL EMISSIONS INTO ATMOSPHERE

Lords amendment: No. 4, in page 5, line 6, at end insert:
( ) The reference in subsection (1) above to the means to be used for the purposes there mentioned includes a reference to the manner in which the plant provided for those purposes is used and to the supervision of any operation involving the emission of the substances to which that subsection applies.

Mr. Harold Walker: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
The amendments seeks to clarify the situation and makes clear that the word "means" refers not only to "plant and appliances" but to the manner in which plant is used in respect of the supervision of operations.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 10

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COMMISSION AND THE EXECUTIVE

Lords amendment: No. 5, in page 8, line 10, leave out "other organisations including".

Mr. Harold Walker: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: It will be convenient with this amendment to take also Lords Amendment No. 6, in page 8, line 11, after "authorities" insert:
and such other organisations, including professional bodies the activities of whose members are concerned with matters relating to any of the general purposes of this Part".

Mr. Walker: The Government accepted Lords Amendment No. 5 when presented in another place as a useful provision since it makes clear that the Secretary of State is expected to consult appropriate professional organisations when appointing non-industrial members of the commission. It achieves in general terms what some hon. Members tried to achieve in respect of industrial professional organisation by amendments which I

had to resist on the ground that they were too specific.

Mr. Madel: I thank the Minister for meeting us. He said that he would introduce an amendment to cover the point in another place. I hope that the professional bodies to which he referred will be ready for the consultation promised in the amendment. I have in mind the medical profession, industrial safety officers and others who made strong representations that they should be consulted. I hope that they are ready for such consultation.

Question put and agreed to.

Subsequent Lords amendments agreed to.

Clause 15

HEALTH AND SAFETY REGULATIONS

Lords amendment: No. 11, in page 13, line 27, at end insert:
( ) may specify the persons or classes of persons who, in the event of a contravention of a requirement or prohibition imposed by or under the regulation, are to be guilty of an offence; whether in addition to or to the exclusion of other persons or classes of persons;".

11.30 p.m.

Mr. Harold Walker: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
This is a drafting amendment. I promised this House on Report that it would be made.

Question put and agreed to.

Subsequent Lords amendments agreed to [Special Entry].

New Clause B

AGRICULTURAL HEALTH AND SAFETY REGULATIONS

Lords amendment: No. 20, in page 29, line 5, at end insert new Clause "B":
B.—(1) Regulations under this section (in this Part referred to as "agricultural health and safety regulations") may be made for any of the relevant agricultural purposes.

(2) Agricultural health and safety regulations may be either regulations applying to Great Britain and made by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Secretary of State acting jointly, or regulations applying to


England and Wales only and made by the said Minister, or regulations applying to Scotland only and made by the Secretary of State.

(3) Where health and safety regulations make provision for any purpose with respect to a matter that relates to (but not exclusively to) agricultural operations—
(a) provision for that purpose shall not be made with respect to that matter by agricultural health and safety regulations so as to have effect while the first-mentioned provision is in force except for the purpose of imposing requirements additional to those imposed by health and safety regulations, being additional requirements which in the opinion of the authority making the agricultural health and safety regulations are necessary or expedient in the special circumstances of agricultural opertaions; and
(b) in the event of any inconsistency between the first-mentioned provision and any provision made with respect to that matter by agricultural health and safety regulations, the first-mentioned provision shall prevail.

(4) The provisions of section 15(2) to (10) and Schedule 3 shall have effect in relation to agricultural health and safety regulations as they have effect in relation to health and safety regulations subject to the following modifications, that is to say—
(a) references to the relevant statutory provisions shall be read as references to such of the relevant statutory provisions as relate to agriculture;
(b) in section 15(4) the references to the Commission shall be read as references to the appropriate Agriculture Minister;
(c) in section 15(6) and paragraph 23 of Schedule 3, the reference to health and safety regulations shall be read as a reference to agricultural health and safety regulations.

(5) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1) above, agricultural health and safety regulations may, as regards agricultural licences under any of the relevant statutory provisions, make provision for requiring the authority having power to issue, renew, vary, transfer or revoke such licences to notify—
(a) any applicant for the issue, renewal, variation or transfer of such a licence of any proposed decision of the authority to refuse the application; or
(b) the holder of such a licence of any proposed decision of the authority to revoke the licence or to vary any term, condition or restriction on or subject to which the licence is held; and for enabling persons aggrieved by any such proposed decision to make representations to, or to a person appointed by, the relevant authority within the period and in the manner prescribed by the regulations.

(6) In relation to any agricultural health and safety regulations made in pursuance of paragraph 2 of Schedule 3 as applied by this section, subsection (2) above shall have effect as if after the words "Great Britain" there were inserted the words "or the United Kingdom".

Read a second time.

Mr. Harold Walker: I beg to move, as amendment to the proposed amendment, in subsection (4), leave out paragraph (a) and insert—
(a) references to the relevant statutory provisions or the existing statutory provisions shall be read as references to such of those provisions as relate to agriculture.

This amendment is consequential on the decision of the House on Lords Amendment No. 1.

Amendment to the proposed amendment agreed to.

Lords Amendment, as amended, agreed to.

Subsequent Lords amendments agreed to [Several with Special Entry].

Clause 45

ADAPTATION OF ENACTMENTS TO METRIC UNITS

Lords Amendment No. 38, in page 42, line 22, leave out subsection (3) and insert the following subsection:
(3) Regulations made under this subsection may, in the case of a provision which falls within any of paragraphs (a) to (c) of subsection (1) above and contains words which refer to units other than metric units, repeal those words if the appropriate Minister is of the opinion that those words could be omitted without altering the effect of that provision.

Read a second time.

Mr. Harold Walker: I beg to move, as an amendment to the proposed amendment, in line 1 after "regulations made" insert "by the appropriate Minister".

This amendment is consequential on the decision of the House of Lords Amendment No. 1.

Amendment to the proposed Amendment agreed to.

Lords amendment, as amended, agreed to.

Lords amendment: No. 39, in page 42, line 28, leave out subsection (4) and insert:
(4) In this section the appropriate Minister means—
(a) in relation to any provision not relating exclusively to agricultural operations the Secretary of State;
(b) in relation to any provision not relating exclusively to the relevant agricultural purposes that applies to Great Britain or the United Kingdom the Agriculture Ministers;


(c) in relation to any provision so relating that applies to England and Wales only, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food;
(d) in relation to any provision so relating that applies to Scotland only, the Secretary of State."

Read a Second time.

Mr. Harold Walker: I beg to move as an amendment to the proposed amendment, in paragraph (b) of the subsection inserted by the said amendment, leave out "not".

Amendment to the proposed amendment agreed to.

Lords amendment, as amended agreed to.

Subsequent Lords amendments agreed to.

Clause 49

GENERAL INTERPRETATION OF PART I

Lords amendment: No. 48, in page 45, line 41, at end insert:
 "the relevant agricultural purposes' means the following purposes, that is to say—
(a) securing the health, safety and welfare at work of persons engaged in agricultural operations,
(b) protecting persons other than persons so engaged against risks to health or safety arising out of or in connection with the activities at work of persons so engaged; "

Read a Second time.

Amendment to the proposed amendment made: at end of definition of "relevant agricultural purposes" add—
and the reference in paragraph (b) above to the risks there mentioned shall be construed in accordance with Section 1(3) ".—[Mr. Harold Walker.]

Lords amendment, as amended, agreed to.

Subsequent Lords amendments agreed to.

New Schedule "A"

MODIFICATIONS OF PART I IN CONNECTION WITH AGRICULTURE

Lords amendment: No. 55, after Schedule 3, in page 91, line 16, at end insert new Schedule "A"—

Provisions applied and Modifications

1. Section 13(1) (various powers)
(a) Paragraph (b) shall be omitted;
(b) references to the Commission or the Secretary of State shall be read as references to the appropriate Agricultural Minister, so

however that references to the Commission's functions shall be read as references to the functions of that Minister under the relevant statutory provisions in relation to matters relating exclusively to the relevant agricultural purposes.

2. Section 14 (power to direct investigations and inquiries).
(a) References to the Commission shall be read as references to the appropriate Agriculture Minister;
(b) in subsection (1), the reference to the general purposes of Part I shall be read as a reference to the relevant agricultural purposes;
(c) in subsection (2), for the words from "direct" to "other" in paragraph (a) there shall be substituted the words "authorise any", the words "with the consent of the Secretary of State" shall be omitted, and for the words from "only matters" to the end of the subsection there shall be substituted the words "matters relating exclusively to the relevant agricultural purposes";

3. Section 16 (approval of codes of practice).
(d) in subsection (6), eferences to the Secretary of State shall be read as references to the appropriate Agriculture Minister.
(a) In subsection (I), the words from "and except" to "agricultural operations" shall be omitted, but so that the section shall confer power to approve or issue codes of practice for any provision mentioned in section 16(1) only for the purposes of the application for that provision to matters relating exclusively to the relevant agricultural purposes;
(b) a code of practice may either be approved for Great Britain and be so approved by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Secretary of State acting jointly, or be approved for England and Wales only and be so approved by that Minister or be approved for Scotland only and be so approved by the Secretary of State, and the references to the Commission shall accordingly be read as references to the Agriculture Ministers or the said Minister or the Secretary of State as the case may require:
(c) for subsection (2) there shall be sub-stituted—

"(2) Before approving a code of practice under subsection (1) above the Minister or Ministers proposing to do so shall consult the Commission and any other body that appears to him or them to be appropriate.";

4. Section 17(3) (use of approved codes in criminal proceedings).
(d) for subsection (5) there shall be sub-stituted—

(5) The authority by whom a code of practice has been approved under this section may at any time withdraw approval from that code, but before doing so shall consult the same bodies as the authority would be required to consult under subsection (2) above if the authority were proposing to approved the Code." The reference to the


Commission shall be read as a reference to the Agriculture Ministers or either of them.
(a) References to the Commission or the Executive shall be read as references to the appropriate Agriculture Minister, so however that references to the Commission's functions shall be read as references to the functions of that Minister under the relevant statutory provisions in relation to matters relating exclusively to the relevant agricultural purposes;
(b) references to an enforcing authority's functions shall be read as references to an enforcing authority's functions under the relevant statutory provisions in relation to matters relating exclusively to the relevant agricultural purposes;
(c) in subsection (1), the words "with the consent of the Secretary of State" shall be omitted;
(d) in subsection (2)(b), the reference to the Secretary of State shall be read as a reference to the appropriate Agriculture Minister, and the words "and the recipient of the information" shall be omitted.

Read a Second time.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Amendment to the proposed Amendment made: In paragraph 3(a), after "In subsection (1)" insert—
the reference to health and safety regulations shall be read as a reference to agricultural health and safety regulations and "—[Mr. Harold Walker.]

Lords amendment, as amended, agreed to.

Remaining Lords amendments agreed to.

EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES (TREATIES)

Motion made and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 73A (Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments),

That the European Communities (Definition of Treaties) Order 1974, a draft of which was laid before this House on 8th July, be approved.—[Mr. Golding.]

The House divided: Ayes 90, Noes 24.

Division No. 95.]
AYES
[11.37 p.m.


Archer, Peter
George, Bruce
Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred


Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Glyn, Dr. Alan
Perry, Ernest G.


Bates, Alf
Graham, Ted
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.W.)


Beith, A. J.
Hamling, William
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)


Bishop, E. S.
Hardy, Peter
Sandelson, Neville


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Harper, Joseph
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)


Brown, Bob (Newcastle upon Tyne, W.)
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (L'sham, D'ford)


Brown, Hugh D. (Glasgow, Provan)
Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith
Silverman, Julius


Carter, Ray
Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Sims, Roger


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Hughes, Mark (Durham)
Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)


Cocks, Michael
John, Brynmor
Smith, John (Lannarkshire, N.)


Coleman, Donald
Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)
Spicer, Jim (Dorset, W.)


Concannon, J. D.
Judd, Frank
Spriggs, Leslie


Cox, Thomas
Kaufman, Gerald
Stanbrook, Ivor


Cunningham, G. (Isl'ngt'n, S &amp; F'sb'ry)
Lamborn, Harry
Steel, David


Cunningham, Dr. John A.(Whiteh'v'n)
Lawrence, Ivan
Stewart, Rt. Hn. M. (H'eth, Fulh'm)


Dalyell, Tam
Lester, Jim (Beeston)
Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy


Davis, Clinton, (Hackney, C.)
Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton &amp; Slough)
Tomlinson, John


Deakins, Eric
Lyons, Edward (Bradford, W.)
Tyler, Paul


Dean, Joseph (Leeds, W.)
MacFarquhar, Roderick
Urwin, T. W.


Dormand, J. D.
Mackenzie, Gregor
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Dunn, James A.
Maclennan, Robert
Weatherill, Bernard


Dunnett, Jack
Magee, Bryan
Whitehead, Phillip


Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)
Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert
Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick


Ennals, David
Millan, Bruce
Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)


Fairgrieve, Russell
Money, Ernie
Winstanleyl, Dr. Michael


Faulds, Andrew
Newton, Tony (Braintree)
Winterton, Nicholas


Foot, Rt. Hn. Michael
O'Halloran, Michael



Fowler, Gerry (The Wrekin)
Ovenden, John



Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)
Palmer, Arthur
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Freeson, Reginald
Pardoe, John
Mr. Laurie Pavitt and


Garrett, John (Norwich, S.)

Mr. John Golding.




NOES


Ashton, Joe
Huckfield, Leslie
Sedgemore, Bryan


Atkinson, Norman
Kelley, Richard
Skinner, Dennis


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Kilfedder, James A.
Snape, Peter


Colquhoun, Mrs. M. N.
Latham, Arthur (City of W'minster P'ton)
Spearing, Nigel


Cryer, G. R.
McNamara, Kevin
Stoddart, David (Swindon)


Dunwoody, Mrs. Gyyneth
Madden, M. O. G.
Wise, Mrs. Audrey


Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth
Parry, Robert



Ellis, John (Brigg &amp; Scunthorpe)
Richardson, Miss Jo
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Flannery, Martin
Rodgers, George (Chorley)
Mr. Russell Kerr and


Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)

Mr. John Lee.

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Walter Harrison.]

Orders of the Day — COHABITATION RULE

11.45 p.m.

Miss Jo Richardson: The cohabitation rule affects entitlement to both supplementary benefits and national insurance widows' benefits. Under the rule a woman who is separated or divorced or who is an unmarried parent or widow can be disqualified from benefits for herself and for her children if she is considered to be cohabiting with a man unless, in the case of certain supplementary benefits, there are exceptional circumstances.
The trouble is that there seems to be no generally accepted definition of cohabitation. The Ministry of Social Security Act 1966 refers to
cohabiting as man and wife.
The National Insurance Act calls it:
cohabiting with a man as his wife.
The Supplementary Benefits Commission has drawn up its own separate and different set of criteria. In another place the noble Lord who replied to the debate on 9th July expressed some surprise that there should be any confusion about the definition. It was, he believed, the state of two people living together and this did not depend on there being a sexual relationship between them. That might be acceptable were it not for the fact that there are so many complaints that the probings of the investigating officers seem to be centred on whether there is a sexual relationship.
There are two separate systems for the investigation of suspected cohabitation and for judging such cases. These cases, which affect widows' benefits but not supplementary benefits, are investigated by national insurance officers and judgment is given by the central pensions branch. Appeals go to the local tribunal and ultimately to a national insurance commissioner.
I shall give the House an example from first-hand experience. In April I attended as an observer a tribunal before a

national insurance commissioner. It was held in public and the Press was present. It concerned a lady who was a widow with a dependent child whose benefit had been withdrawn many months previously because a visiting officer suspected that she was cohabiting with a lodger. Many of the questions that she was asked at the tribunal, and which she had been asked during the previous investigations, were concerned not with establishing whether the lodger was maintaining her as a husband maintains a wife—he was not doing so—but with the time they went to bed, whether they slept together, whether the disposition of beds in the house would encourage that, whether their separate bedrooms were near to each other and, believe it or not, whether, because there were children present elsewhere in the house, they were copulating on the living-room floor. I found these questions highly distasteful and not relevant to the question of whether benefit paid to the lady was a proper expenditure of public money.
The woman concerned had waited eight months for her hearing to take place. The decision of the commissioner, which was given a few days ago, took more than nine weeks to be arrived at. I am horrified to find that the appeal has been dismissed. The commissioner said in his summing-up that the question could be investigated under three headings: first the personal relationship, which includes inquiry as to whether there is a sexual relationship between the two; secondly their financial relationship—in other words, to what extent the man supports the woman financially or they pool their resources; and thirdly their joint relationship in respect of the community—that is to say, whether they were regarded as a couple by people outside the home.
The commissioner found that there was no evidence under the second and third headings but he found that there was a personal relationship, which included the finding that there was a sexual relationship between them. He also said that he found the woman to be a
reluctant witness whose evidence had to be dragged out of her".
I thought she was very frank. I myself would have been much more reluctant to


answer some of the horribly personal questions that were put to her. Therefore, not only has she now no benefit, but she has to repay nearly £100 of benefit which she had during the period between her notifying the Department that the lodger was in her house and the time when the Department decided to investigate whether or not she was living with a man.
In May of this year a different commissioner upheld the appeal of a woman who admitted that she regularly slept three nights a week with the lodger and had had twins by him but had had no financial support from him. How can these two contrary decisions be reconciled?
We have a different procedure when a woman is drawing only supplementary benefit. In that case the investigation will be initiated by the local office. It will often be carried out by special investigators and it is subject to appeal to the local supplementary benefit appeal tribunal. If a woman is drawing both widow's benefit and supplementary benefit, the investigation is generally carried out by special investigators, but there are two adjudicators with the two different appeal systems. The outcome could be different in respect of the different benefits. It does not make sense.
I am especially concerned with the way in which the rule is being operated. Studies have been carried out showing that the types of situation classified as cohabitation by the commission's officers include, for example, women acting as landladies or housekeepers to elderly men, young people flat-sharing or temporarily putting up friends while looking for their own accommodation and women visited by platonic men-friends or boyfriends or ex-boy-friends.
I know that it is rightly the duty of the Supplementary Benefits Commission to protect public money. But it also has a duty to try to provide conditions for people to live decently and with dignity. Why must it automatically be assumed that people are lying and grabbing? Most people are not doing so, and most of those who draw benefit would prefer to earn a living. Many single parents, for example, would take jobs which would help to keep themselves and their children if it were not for the £2 disregards rule.
I realise that there is no easy solution to the problem of cohabitation, but an attempt must be made to change the present situation. There must be a more precise definition of the rule. The Fisher Comittee on Social Security Abuse recommended that the rule should be more precisely defined, and also suggested amending the statute in the direction of greater precision. The definition ought to centre on the question of financial support from the man and the pooling of household resources. Another element could be the stability of co-residence. Any definition, however, must be printed in widow's benefit and supplementary benefit order books so that women know their position. Very few of them are aware of their right to appeal. We must give greater publicity to this.
So long as there is a cohabitation rule, benefit should not be withdrawn until the case has been heard on appeal. The appeal tribunal, in the case of widows' and supplementary benefits, must be seen to be genuinely independent and, what is more important, consistent. We need reforms in the procedure for the investigation leading to withdrawal of benefit. Many reforms were recommended by the Fisher Committee but not all of them were accepted by the Government.
For example, the practice of snooping on claimants through their friends, their neighbours, their landlords, their rent collectors, their milkmen, at work, through their children and so on, must cease. That is an unwarranted intrusion into the privacy of the individual. We must give greater thought and care to the selection and training of visiting officers so that they are able to cope with the job without making claimants feel an object of charity, if not a criminal.
I should like to know whether we are to accept the recommendations of the Finer Committee which has done a magnificent job. Its report will become a "bible" for future legislation on one-parent families. It recommended that benefit should continue to be paid until the hearing of the tribunal and not withdrawn by the visiting officer on suspicion, sometimes vague, that a woman was cohabiting. This would seem to be a simple recommendation for the Government to accept and put into practice. It would not involve any extra expenditure


because the money is, in effect, already allocated for this purpose.
In 1973 over 1,100 widows' benefits were withdrawn. About 100 widows appealed to the local tribunal and about 40 were successful. Only two of the unsuccessful appellants appealed to the commissioner. Over 900 did not appeal. Why was this? I believe that in the great majority of cases they either did not know that they could appeal or they had neither the confidence nor the advice to do so. Why could not the Department of Health and Social Security give people in this position a list of the organisations which could help them? It does not have to advise them but it could at least supply them, for the price of a piece of paper, with a list of the organisations like the Child Poverty Action Group, Gingerbread and so on, which could give assistance, legal advice and representation.
In ordinary cases coming before the courts defendants are always made thoroughly aware of their right to legal aid. I do not see why we should not do the same here. We have heard that an inquiry is in progress at the Supplementary Benefits Commission into the operation of the cohabitation rule. I have heard that this is the second inquiry. I would like to know, if there was an earlier inquiry, why the result was not made public.
I hope that at least the report of the second inquiry will be made public when the Secretary of State receives it. It was said in another place that although the commission might consider taking written evidence from outside organisations during its investigations there would probably be no provision for oral evidence. Why not? Here is a golden opportunity. Many organisations with valid cases would be willing to give evidence. This inquiry covers only supplementary benefit.
Since we are also concerned about widows' benefits, Iask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary whether the Department will consider an inquiry into the cohabitation rule as it affects national insurance. This is equally important. It is a tragedy, and my hon. Friend may well share this view that in many cases the standards of treatment of those in benefit have gradually deteriorated from what they were intended to be and what we

would like them to be. I hope my hon. Friend will be able to assure us that we can look forward to a considerable improvement. The poor law syndrome must be buried once and for all.

12 midnight.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Robert C. Brown): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Miss Richardson) for raising this matter tonight. The cohabiation rule has been the subject of comment and concern on a number of grounds. It is appropriate that we should be discussing the matter at this time in view of the renewed attention drawn to it recently in the Finer Committee's report, to which my hon. Friend has referred, and elsewhere.
The justification for the cohabitation rule has always been quite simply that it would be unfair to put a couple who are cohabiting in a better position for benefit than a couple who are legally married.
It is the custom in this country to treat the family, consisting of man, wife and dependent children, as one financial unit, and the cohabitation rule has been regarded as a necessary consequence of all the other rules relating to benefits that reflect this principle.
The principle underlying the cohabitation rule is based on the existence of the stable family as the basic unit of our social structure. Supplementary benefit rules provide that the requirements and resources of the family unit should be assessed together. The same applies whether or not the couple concerned are married.
Successive Governments have considered it essential and right to treat married and cohabiting couples equally. If they were not treated alike, the cohabiting couple would be tat an immediate advantage because the woman could continue to receive supplementary benefit while the man was working. A married woman cannot do that. This would constitute a disincentive to marriage and to the consequent legitimation of children and would, no doubt, in itself arouse strong public criticism.
The long-held view that there is need of a cohabitation rule received support in the report of the Committee on One-Parent Families, the Finer Committee,


which devoted considerable attention to the rule. I will say more about that later.
The committee clearly had reservations about it and in its report said that it would have liked to have recommended its abolition if it could have found a reasonable and viable basis for doing so. I think that many people would feel the same as the committee on that point. In the end, however, the Committee concluded that a cohabitation rule should be retained because of what it gave as the overwhelming argument in its favour—that it could not be right to treat unmarried women who had the support of a partner both as if they had no such support and better than if they were married.
The necessity of having a cohabitation rule has been accepted for many years and has been further acknowledged as recently as this report by the Finer Committee. Nevertheless we all recognise that this is a most difficult area in the administration of both contributory and non-contributory benefits and one which gives rise to many problems.
As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced recently, a review of the operation of the rule as it affects supplementary benefit is now being carried out by the Supplementary Benefits Commission, and my right hon. Friend has asked the Commission to include in its consideration the question whether any change is desirable in the relevant provisions of the Act governing supplementary benefit and to report to her on its findings. I am sure that in the course of its review the commission will take full account of all the points that have been raised in the debate this evening. In fact is it absolutely certain that the Commission will do so, because only this afternoon I was talking to the chairman, Lord Collison, about this matter.
I turn now to some of the more specific point made by my hon. Friend tonight. The first concerned snooping. I do not think that any hon. Members and certainly many people outside, like the idea of snooping. If, however, the cohabitation rule is to be administered and equity as between married couples and cohabiting couples is to be maintained, inquiries have to be made where it is thought that cohabitation is being concealed. An interview with the woman

or the couple may be sufficient, but officers often have to go further since a straightforward question to the claimant may lead only to a denial. There is no way of avoiding these inquiries, which are sometimes understandably resented, but the Department does its best by way of instruction and training to ensure that the investigating staff do their job as tactfully and discreetly as possible consistent with their duty to prevent abuse of public funds.
I should like to refer to some of the recommendations of the Fisher Committee. Its key recommendation in connection with the cohabitation rule was that though the measures employed to detect cohabitation and fictitious desertion should be as little intrusive and involve as little offence to the feelings of beneficiaries as was consistent with efficiency, the Department should not turn a blind eye to suspected abuse because the people suspected of committing it were in a situation which attracted sympathy. That recommendation has been accepted by the Supplementary Benefits Commission and most of the other recommendations the committee made about the administration of the cohabitation rule have either been accepted or are under close consideration.
I shall now deal with some of the recommendations that have been accepted. One recommendation was that the same principles of adjudication should be observed in dealing with cases of suspected cohabitation by recipients of widows' benefit and supplementary benefit respectively. This recommendation has been accepted. The committee recommended that regional offices should maintain a careful and continuous oversight of the methods used by special investigators. The commission has accepted this recommendation. Another recommendation was that order books should not be withdrawn on the spot by the inspector or special investigator. This has also been accepted.
Other recommendations which the commission is closely studying include the following: that the wording of the various statutes relating to cohabitation should be brought into line; that adjudication procedures for widows benefit and supplementary benefit should be brought into line; that when benefit is withdrawn the claimant should be given a signed


document stating the meaning of cohabitation and the grounds of the decision to withdraw benefit; and that when a claimant appeals, urgent need payments to cover the period up to the appeal should be made more readily. I am sure that in the review which the commission is making there will be a great deal of deliberation on these matters and I would hope that there might be some decisions to which my hon. Friend can look forward.
The Finer Committee on One-Parent Families, to which my hon. Friend has referred, concluded that the cohabitation rule is necessary because unmarried women who have the support of a partner would otherwise be treated both as if they had no such support and better than if they were married, which could not be right.
The committee made two recommendations on the administration of the rule. The first was that before benefit is withdrawn on grounds of cohabitation from a claimant in receipt of weekly payments of supplementary benefit, she should be

given a written statement of the alleged facts and that if she denies any of them the case should go to the appeal tribunal, benefit being continued in the meantime. The second recommendation was that where benefit is withdrawn because of cohabitation but the cahabitee is not supporting dependent children of the claimant of whom he is not the father, the exceptional needs payment for the children which the commission is now prepared to pay for four weeks should be continued for three months.
Those recommendations will be carefully considered by the Supplementary Benefits Commission during its review of the operation of the cohabitation rule.
In case I have missed any of the points that my hon. Friend made I shall certainly look closely at what she said in what I thought was an excellent and moving speech, and write to her about them.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at ten minutes past Twelve o'clock.